The Small Mammals of the Paisley and Connley Caves: Disentangling Drivers of Diversity in Pleistocene Extinction Survivors

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The project will test how climate change and humans have altered small mammal communities over the last 17,000 years. Paleontological studies have greatly increased our understanding of the ecological impacts of climate change and the extinction of large-bodied mammals at the end of the last Ice Age. Little is known, however, about how climate change, human impacts, and the loss of large mammals have shaped the ecology of the smallest extinction survivors: mammals under 3 kilograms (e.g., squirrels, rats and mice). This is despite the important and diverse roles that small mammals play in ecosystems. This knowledge gap is not only a problem for paleontology; ecologists also don’t fully understand the direct and indirect ways that climate change and human impacts are changing the ecosystems in which we live today. Studying how the smallest mammals have responded to major ecological disruption will thus help us better predict how mammalian communities today are likely to shift in the future. This is important because ecosystems today are often changing in ways we cannot predict using climate change alone. In addition to testing how small mammal communities have changed over time, this project will develop a Virtual Field Trip that will educate participants on the Great Basin’s natural and cultural histories. This activity will provide training to undergraduate and graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher and engage elementary age students and teachers in rural Oregon schools.To meet this challenge, this research will use the paleontological and archaeological records of the Paisley and Connley Caves. The caves are in the northwestern Great Basin, a now-threatened ecoregion that was central to the peopling of the Western Hemisphere. Fossils will be used to estimate the diversity and function of small mammal communities from 17,000 years ago to today. Radiocarbon dating of these fossils, and surveys of modern small mammals, will help answer questions about how climate change and human presence have together shaped biodiversity in the past and the present. The research will also study how small mammal communities today differ from what they were like just before European contact. Thus, the research will highlight the importance of museum collections and the value of fossils for Modern conservation efforts.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.