NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology: Biogeography and community assembly of North American Carboniferous ecosystems

该行动为2022财年美国国家科学基金会生物学博士后研究奖学金提供资金，扩大生物学中代表性不足群体的参与。该奖学金支持研究员的研究和培训计划，该计划将增加在生物学中代表性不足的群体的参与。该项目将调查地球历史上森林首次出现，四足动物（四肢脊椎动物）起源并多样化为现存陆地动物祖先的时间。利用化石记录和包括解剖学、地质学和生态学在内的方法，他将分析现代陆地生态系统的古代起源，以确定生态系统如何对环境和生物多样性的变化作出反应。了解地球上迄今为止的生命历史是很重要的，因为这些知识将告诉我们如何更好地管理自然和建筑环境。该研究员将增加古生物学和地球科学的多样性，并为来自代表性不足群体的学生树立榜样和导师。公众外展活动将进一步扩大项目的影响。四足动物起源于大约3.7亿年前的泥盆纪晚期。到3000万年前的早石炭世，它们已经超越了泥盆纪那种专门水生的、像鱼一样的形态，变成了各种各样的体型、大小，既有水生的，也有陆地的生活方式，跨越了无水动物和羊膜动物这两个种群。从石炭纪到二叠纪，陆生四足动物的多样性不断增加，其特征是从依赖水生活动的“原始”食物网向完全以陆地为基础的“现代”食物网过渡。然而，这一假设是基于四足动物陆地化的线性适应过程的假设，这一假设日益受到化石资料和泥盆纪-石炭纪大陆结构的挑战。本研究将结合化石的解剖描述、地质和地理数据以及比较食物网模型来研究四足动物陆地化的过程和背景。该研究员将接受实地考察和比较古生态学方法使用方面的培训。研究结果将通过在开放获取期刊上发表的方式在科学会议上分享，并通过社区外展活动与更广泛的公众分享。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。

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2022, Broadening Participation of Groups Underrepresented in Biology. The Fellowship supports a research and training plan for the Fellow that will increase the participation of groups underrepresented in biology. This project will investigate the time in Earth’s history when forests first appeared, and tetrapods (limbed vertebrates) originated and diversified into the ancestors of living land animals. Using the fossil record and approaches including anatomy, geology, and ecology the fellow will analyze the ancient origins of modern land ecosystems, to determine how ecosystems respond to changes in environment and biodiversity. It is important to understand the history of life on Earth up to the present, as this knowledge will inform how to become better stewards of the natural and built environments. The fellow will increase the diversity of paleontology and earth sciences and serve as a role model and mentor for students from underrepresented groups. Public outreach events will further broaden the impact of the project. Tetrapods originated in the Late Devonian approximately 370 million years ago. By 30 million years ago, in the Early Carboniferous, they had expanded beyond the obligately aquatic, fish-like Devonian forms into a great range of body forms, sizes, and both aquatic and terrestrial modes of life, spanning both the lissamphibian and amniote total groups. The increasing diversity of terrestrial tetrapods throughout the Carboniferous and into the Permian has been characterized as a transition from ‘primitive’ food webs dependent on aquatic activity to ‘modern’, wholly land-based communities. However, this hypothesis is based on assumptions of a linear, adaptive process of tetrapod terrestrialization which is increasingly challenged by fossil data, and the continental structure during the Devonian-Carboniferous period. This study will combine anatomical description of fossils, geological and geographic data, and comparative food web modeling to investigate the process and context of tetrapod terrestrialization. The fellow will be trained in the conduct of fieldwork and the use of comparative paleoecological methods. Findings will be shared at scientific conferences, through publication in open-access journals, and with the broader public via community outreach events.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.