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

协同研究：二叠纪-三叠纪大灭绝后陆地环境的重构。华盛顿大学的克里斯蒂安·西多，加州大学的彼得·鲁帕纳林学院，伊利诺斯州芝加哥菲尔德自然历史博物馆的肯尼斯·安吉尔奇克，弗吉尼亚理工大学的斯特林·内斯比特，由于缺乏高质量的区域或全球尺度的数据，对深时间（2.45亿至1.2亿年前）气候变化及其相关的大灭绝对陆地生物群落的广泛影响的理解受到了阻碍。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（连同TZAM）前六个季节的实地考察基础上，为这一环境、气候和生物变化的重大关联事件带来新的数据。我们的团队将在两个季节的野外考察中收集多学科数据（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）。在实验室里，我们将使用地理分布和社区食物网模型来解决关于大灭绝及其随后恢复的更一般的问题。例如，大灭绝是否一直导致某些类型的社区重组，或者它们的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，而不考虑所涉及物种的确切身份？从记录这次灭绝事件的原因和影响，到利用它作为应对现代生物危机的预测信息来源，回答这些类型的问题是这一过程中的重要一步。脊椎动物古生物学使公众着迷。由于其可见性，我们的结果将主要在参与项目的自然历史博物馆向公众传播。我们将与菲尔德博物馆和伯克博物馆的展览部门合作，制作两个展览装置，重点是来自坦桑尼亚的一种小型恐龙亲戚阿西利龙，它是我们研究项目的标志。赠款结束后，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。我们还将开发一个以阿斯利龙为重点的FMNH古生物学视频游戏“骨头游戏”的关卡。游戏关卡将围绕发现和挖掘阿斯利龙标本，重建其解剖结构，并对其古生物学进行推断。游戏级别将在野外自然历史博物馆（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（例如，FMNH: Science@FMNH, The Field Revealed; UWBM: BurkeBlog; CAS: Science Today and Science in Action）上进行推广。

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).