MCA: Ecological Constraints on Hominin Population Dynamics: Small Mammal Dental Shape Analyses as Novel Paleoecological Proxies

在这个中期职业发展（MCA）项目中，首席研究员开发新的方法来重建过去的气候和环境，从而有助于正在进行的研究和辩论气候，环境变化和人口动态之间的联系。该项目使用牙齿形状分析或生态计量学开发高分辨率的古环境代理，测量牙齿尖的数量，大小和形状，并已被证明可以反映许多动物群体的饮食和环境。然后，该项目的研究成果可以整合到研究中，以重建从200万年前到15，000年前的三个时期内人类居住的关键区域的古环境。该项目促进人类学，生物科学和地球科学研究人员之间的创造性协同作用，并开发一个公开的互动模型，这将有助于批判性地解决人类进化中的问题，直接影响气候危机。该项目还推进了PI和本科生的培训和研究计划。研究人员与其他古人类学专家合作，获得基础技能，研究小型哺乳动物的牙齿形状-饮食-生态学，研究人类在各种气候条件下的进化，包括：1）微型CT和激光三维（3D）扫描，2）图像和牙齿形状分析; 3）地理信息系统（GIS）和空间分析;（4）计算统计分析和编码。研究人员测量牙齿生态变量（牙齿咬合拓扑，拓扑和地形）的3D数字扫描的小型哺乳动物牙齿的现代物种。使用地理信息系统，生态计量值与气候和生态参数建立一个新的，定量的和强大的技术来重建过去的环境。在化石牙齿上测量的牙齿生态测量变量使研究人员能够制作出一张高质量的栖息地和气候分布图，跨越不同的史前时期。应用空间统计分析可以在三个特定的时间节点上定量地测试气候变化和人类进化之间的联系：1。早期人属从非洲扩散到欧亚大陆（250 - 70万年前）; 2.尼安德特人的灭绝（160，000 - 40，000年前）;和3。现代人类对最后一个冰河时代（26,000- 15,000年前）的适应。该项目由生物人类学（SBE）和刺激竞争研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）共同资助。该奖项反映了NSF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。

In this Mid-Career Advancement (MCA) project, the principal investigator develops new methods to reconstruct past climates and environments, thus contributing to ongoing research and debates about the links between climate, environmental change, and human population dynamics. The project develops high resolution paleoenvironmental proxies using dental shape analysis or ecometrics, which measures the number, size, and shape of teeth cusps and has been shown to reflect diet and environment in many groups of animals. Research outcomes from this project can then be integrated into research to reconstruct paleoenvironments in critical areas of hominin occupation across three time periods dating from 2 million years ago to 15,000 years ago. This project fosters creative synergies between researchers in anthropology, biological sciences, and geosciences, and develops a publicly available interactive model which will help critically address questions in human evolution with direct implications for the climate crisis. The project also advances the training and research program of the PI as well as undergraduate students. The investigator partners with other paleoanthropological experts to acquire foundational skills to study the tooth shape-diet-ecology of small mammals in focal areas for studying human evolution across a wide range of climates, including: 1) micro-CT and laser 3-dimensional (3D) scanning, 2) image and tooth shape analysis; 3) Geographic Information Systems (GIS) and spatial analyses; and 4) computational statistical analyses and coding. The investigator measures dental ecometric variables (dental occlusal topology, topometry, and topography) on 3D digital scans of small mammal teeth of modern species. Using Geographic Information Systems, ecometric values are correlated with climatic and ecological parameters building a novel, quantitative and robust technique to reconstruct past environments. Dental ecometric variables measured on fossil teeth allow the investigator to produce a high-quality map of habitats and climate distributions across different prehistoric time frames. Applying spatial statistical analyses enables quantitatively testing the link between climate change and human evolution at three specific time junctures: 1. The dispersal of early Homo from Africa into Eurasia (2.5 – 0.7 million years ago); 2. The extinction of Neanderthal (160,000 – 40,000 years ago); and 3. The adaptation of modern humans to the last ice age (26,000- 15,000 years ago). This project is jointly funded by Biological Anthropology (SBE) and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.