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EAR-PF: Mammals as sentinels of biotic recovery and the topographic diversity gradient in the aftermath of the Cretaceous–Paleogene mass extinction

EAR-PF：哺乳动物作为生物恢复的前哨和白垩纪-古近纪大规模灭绝后的地形多样性梯度

基本信息

批准号：
2052992
负责人：
Lucas Weaver
金额：
$ 17.4万
依托单位：
Weaver, Lucas N
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Fellowship Award
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2021-09-01 至 2023-08-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2052992&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
EAR PF Mammals sentinels biotic

项目摘要

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Dr. Lucas N. Weaver has been awarded an NSF EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship to investigate the ecological recovery of mammals during the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) mass extinction event. Insight from other environmental catastrophes in Earth’s past can provide information about the current environmental crisis. Additionally, impacts of environmental disturbances are not equal across time and space; therefore, it is important to see how resilient or susceptible species are to extinction in different temporal and geographic settings. The K-Pg mass extinction event, which occurred 66 million years ago and is famous for leading to the extinction of the dinosaurs, is similar to the kind of extinction seen today. Towards this end, this project aims to study how mammal communities (including the ancient ancestors of the group to which humans belong) recovered from the K–Pg mass extinction over the first 1 million years of the ‘Age of Mammals,’ in the Denver Basin of Colorado. Mammals are often used as ‘canaries in the coal mine’ for ecological health because environmental variables such as temperature and moisture are related to mammals’ ecological health. The work is based on the hypothesis that the Rocky Mountains acted as a buffer during the K–Pg mass extinction and allowed more mammalian species to survive and diversify in a post-dinosaur world. Given that the Earth is likely in the midst of a sixth mass extinction event in its history, this study provides crucial insight into which ecosystems are at greatest risk, and which ecosystems are better able to ‘weather the storm.’ Broader impacts of this work include working with the Denver Museum of Nature and Science to disseminate results to a broad audience through their exhibits; mentoring of undergraduates at University of Michigan and City University of New York, and development of curriculum for high school students. This project aims to investigate the spatial and temporal heterogeneity of mammal recovery after the Cretaceous–Paleogene (K–Pg) mass extinction (66 million years ago) in the Denver Basin of Colorado. Denver Basin fossil localities are highly resolved chronostratigraphically, allowing precise correlation of the pattern and timing of biotic recovery in different paleogeographic regions of the basin during the first ~1 million years of the Paleogene. Since mountainous regions today are biodiversity hotspots, this project is based on the hypothesis that mammal communities close to the emerging Rocky Mountains (1) were more resistant to the K–Pg mass extinction, and (2) recovered more quickly in its aftermath. To explore these hypotheses, the work will quantify and compare the taxonomic (richness, relative abundance), dietary (inferred via tooth shape), and body mass (inferred via tooth size) diversity between two stratigraphic sequences of fossil mammal assemblages: (1) close to and (2) far from the Rocky Mountain front range. This project will involve field and laboratory work and will use new paleoecological methods to infer community-level mammal diversity patterns through time. This study will be the first to (1) look at spatial heterogeneity in post-K–Pg mammalian recovery in high resolution and (2) explore whether mountain habitats were a driver of early mammalian diversity. These results will help identify geospatial features that promote biological community resilience/reassembly after environmental disasters, and will shed light on the tempo and mode of the post-K–Pg radiation of mammals, which ultimately led to the distribution of terrestrial biodiversity we see today. This work will also integrate data from the mammal fossil record with the broader vertebrate and plant fossil record, and with paleoclimate proxies. This novel multidisciplinary approach will allow collaboration with other scientists to track whole-ecosystem recovery in the aftermath of the K–Pg mass extinction.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.

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。Lucas N. Weaver博士被授予NSF EAR博士后奖学金，研究白垩纪-古近纪（K-Pg）大灭绝事件期间哺乳动物的生态恢复。从地球过去的其他环境灾难中获得的洞察力可以为当前的环境危机提供信息。此外，环境扰动的影响在时间和空间上是不相等的；因此，了解物种在不同的时间和地理环境下对灭绝的适应性或易感性是很重要的。6600万年前发生的以导致恐龙灭绝而闻名的K-Pg大灭绝事件与今天看到的物种灭绝类似。为此，该项目旨在研究科罗拉多州丹佛盆地的哺乳动物群落（包括人类所属群体的古代祖先）如何从“哺乳动物时代”的前100万年K-Pg大灭绝中恢复过来。哺乳动物经常被用作生态健康的“煤矿里的金丝雀”，因为温度和湿度等环境变量与哺乳动物的生态健康有关。这项研究基于这样一种假设，即落基山脉在K-Pg大灭绝期间起到了缓冲作用，使更多的哺乳动物物种得以生存，并在后恐龙时代实现了多样化。考虑到地球可能正处于其历史上第六次大灭绝事件中，这项研究为哪些生态系统面临最大风险，哪些生态系统能够更好地“抵御风暴”提供了至关重要的见解。“这项工作的更广泛影响包括与丹佛自然与科学博物馆合作，通过他们的展览向广大观众传播结果；为密歇根大学和纽约城市大学的本科生提供指导，并为高中生开发课程。本项目旨在研究科罗拉多州丹佛盆地白垩纪-古近纪（K-Pg）大灭绝（6600万年前）后哺乳动物恢复的时空异质性。丹佛盆地化石位置的年代地层学分辨率很高，可以精确地对比盆地不同古地理区域在古近纪前100万年至100万年的生物恢复模式和时间。由于今天的山区是生物多样性的热点地区，该项目基于这样的假设：靠近新兴落基山脉的哺乳动物群落(1)对K-Pg大灭绝的抵抗力更强，(2)在其后果中恢复得更快。为了探索这些假设，这项工作将量化和比较两个地层序列之间化石哺乳动物组合的分类（丰富度，相对丰度），饮食（通过牙齿形状推断）和体重（通过牙齿大小推断）的多样性：(1)靠近落基山脉和(2)远离落基山脉。该项目将包括实地和实验室工作，并将使用新的古生态学方法来推断社区水平的哺乳动物多样性模式。这项研究将首次(1)以高分辨率研究k - pg后哺乳动物恢复的空间异质性；(2)探索山地栖息地是否是早期哺乳动物多样性的驱动因素。这些结果将有助于确定促进环境灾害后生物群落恢复/重组的地理空间特征，并将揭示哺乳动物后k - pg辐射的速度和模式，最终导致我们今天看到的陆地生物多样性分布。这项工作还将把哺乳动物化石记录的数据与更广泛的脊椎动物和植物化石记录以及古气候代用物相结合。这种新颖的多学科方法将允许与其他科学家合作，追踪K-Pg大灭绝后的整个生态系统恢复。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。