ELT: Collaborative Research: Restructuring of terrestrial environments following the Permian-Triassic mass extinction

ELT合作研究：二叠-三叠纪大规模灭绝后的地球环境重建。华盛顿大学Christian Sidor，加州Peter Roopnarine学院Kenneth Angielczyk，伊利诺伊州芝加哥菲尔德自然历史博物馆Sterling Nesville，弗吉尼亚理工大学理解深层次气候变化的大尺度效应（2.45亿至1.2亿年前）及其相关的大规模灭绝对陆地社区的影响因缺乏高质量的区域或全球规模数据而受到阻碍，因为几乎所有的研究都局限于俄罗斯或南非的序列。这项研究将建立在坦桑尼亚和赞比亚（一起TZAM）的实地调查的六个季节的基础上，为环境，气候和生物变化的这一重大关联事件带来新的数据。我们的团队将收集多学科数据（沉积学，地球化学，脊椎动物古生物学，古植物学和地质年代学）在两个拟议的季节的实地考察。在实验室中，我们将使用地理分布和社区食物网模型来解决有关大规模灭绝及其随后恢复的更一般性问题。例如，大规模搬迁是否一贯导致某些类型的社区重组，或其影响是否因环境和地理而异？陆地群落的生态重建是否以一种刻板的方式进行，而不管所涉及的物种的确切身份？在从记录这一灭绝事件的原因和影响，到将其作为处理现代生物危机的预测信息来源的过程中，提出这些类型的问题是重要的一步。由于其知名度，我们的结果将主要在参与该项目的自然历史博物馆向公众传播。与菲尔德博物馆和伯克博物馆的展览部门合作，我们将创建两个展览装置，重点是Asilisaurus kongwe，这是一种来自坦桑尼亚的小型恐龙亲戚，是我们研究项目的标志。在赠款结束时，这些装置将永久转移到坦桑尼亚国家博物馆（坦桑尼亚达累斯萨拉姆）和利文斯通博物馆（赞比亚利文斯通），在那里他们将向当地公民介绍他们国家丰富的古生物遗产。我们还将开发FMNH的古生物学视频游戏Game of Bones的一个级别，专注于阿西利龙。游戏关卡将围绕着发现和挖掘阿西里龙的标本，重建其解剖结构，并对其古生物学进行推断。游戏关卡将在菲尔德自然历史博物馆（FMNH）、华盛顿大学伯克博物馆（UWBM）和加州科学院（CAS）的主要网站、博物馆的社交媒体网站以及针对科学爱好者的网页上进行推广（例如，FMNH：Science@FMNH，The Field Revealed; UWBM：BurkeBlog; CAS：Science Today and Science in Action）。

ELT COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH: RESTRUCTURING OF TERRESTRIAL ENVIRONMENTS FOLLOWING THE PERMIAN-TRIASSIC MASS EXTINCTION.Christian Sidor, University of WashingtonPeter Roopnarine, California AcademyKenneth Angielczyk, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, IllinoisSterling Nesbitt, Virginia Technological UniversityUnderstanding the broad-scale effects of climate change in deep time (between 245 and 120 million years ago) and its associated mass extinction, on terrestrial communities has been hindered by the lack of high-quality regional or global-scale data, as nearly all studies have been restricted to sequences in Russia or South Africa. This research will build on six prior seasons of fieldwork in Tanzania and Zambia (together TZAM) to bring new data to bear on this major linked event of environmental, climatic, and biotic change. Our team will gather multidisciplinary data (sedimentological, geochemical, vertebrate paleontological, paleobotanical, and geochronological) during two proposed seasons of fieldwork. In the lab, we will use geographic distribution and community food web models to address more general questions about mass extinctions and their subsequent recoveries. For example, do mass extinctions consistently cause certain types of community restructuring or do their effects vary with environment and geography? Does the ecological rebuilding of terrestrial communities proceed in a stereotyped way, regardless of the exact identities of the species involved? Answering these types of questions is an important step in the process of moving from documenting the causes and effects of this extinction event, to using it as a source of predictive information for dealing with modern biotic crises.Vertebrate paleontology fascinates the public. Because of their visibility, dissemination of our results to the general public will primarily occur at the natural history museums involved in the project. In collaboration with the exhibits departments at the Field Museum and Burke Museum, we will create two exhibit installations focusing on Asilisaurus kongwe, a small dinosaur relative from Tanzania that is an icon of our research project. At the conclusion of the grant, the installations will be permanently transferred to the National Museum of Tanzania (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania), and the Livingstone Museum (Livingstone, Zambia) where they will introduce local citizens to the rich paleontological heritage of their nations. We will also develop a level of the FMNH's paleontology video game Game of Bones focusing on Asilisaurus. The game level will be centered around discovering and excavating a specimen of Asilisaurus, reconstructing its anatomy, and making inferences about its paleobiology. The game level will be promoted on the main websites of the Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), University of Washington Burke Museum (UWBM), and the California Academy of Science (CAS), the museums' social media sites, and web pages targeting science enthusiasts (e.g., FMNH: Science@FMNH, The Field Revealed; UWBM: BurkeBlog; CAS: Science Today and Science in Action).