EAR-PF Bringing fossil cephalopods back to life: virtual and physical assessment of hydrostatics, hydrodynamics, and functional morphology

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An NSF EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship has been granted to David J. Peterman to carry out research and education plans at the University of Utah under the mentorship of Dr. Kathleen Ritterbush. The research project focuses on investigating the aquatic biomechanics of fossil cephalopods (e.g. nautiloids, ammonoids, etc.) to disentangle the relationship between shell form and function. During their extensive evolutionary history, thousands of cephalopod species experimented with wildly different shell morphologies while serving as vital components of marine ecosystems. Despite their abundance, diversity, and rapid turnover, little is known about the specific modes of life or life habit assumed by characteristic morphotypes, or the functional morphology of certain shell features. Therefore, understanding the properties of these diverse organisms is necessary to integrate morphology into the current grasp of evolution and extinction, the constraints on biogeographic dispersal, and the paleoecology of these key components of marine ecosystems. The project will construct a self-sustaining, state-of-the-art, aquatic biomechanics laboratory while fostering education in emerging technologies in engineering and computer science, and thus promoting the importance of multidisciplinary collaboration. In order to investigate the interaction between ecology and evolution for shelled cephalopods, the PI will develop a cutting-edge workflow for the generation of neutrally buoyant cephalopod models in virtual and physical settings. The proposed virtual modeling of fossils serves as an alternate approach to tomographic techniques. Additionally, their physical counterparts can be used to assess complex physical properties in a chaotic, real world setting. Such models will allow the computation of physical properties that acted on these animals during life. These properties include hydrostatics (the conditions for neutral buoyancy, stability, life orientation, the directional efficiency of movement) and hydrodynamics (drag, lift, and swimming capabilities). Such properties are fundamental to better understand the constraints on locomotion, modes of life, life habit, paleoecology, and the selective pressures acting on the targeted cephalopods (from the scale of individual communities to entire morphotypes). Due to the vast temporal range, ubiquity, diversity, and extensive geographic distributions of shelled cephalopods, evaluating their syn vivo physical properties is vital to fully-reconstruct almost any marine ecosystem during most of the Phanerozoic Eon. This project received co-funding from the Sedimentary Geology and Paleobiology program in the Earth Science division.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.