Late Cretaceous and Paleocene amber deposits in western Canada

现代昆虫区系主要由四种高度多样化的昆虫目组成，它们在中生代或“恐龙时代”随着开花植物的兴起而多样化。这些昆虫类群（甲虫、苍蝇、真臭虫，以及蚂蚁、黄蜂和蜜蜂）是陆地生态系统的主要贡献者，具有重要的生态和经济意义，但我们对它们的进化关系和对过去事件的反应的理解受到它们的化石记录的限制。昆虫化石记录中最大的空白之一源于在白垩纪末灭绝事件之前和随后的古新世时期内，几乎没有跨越一千多万年的数据。这项研究的目标是用从萨斯喀彻温省众多脆弱的琥珀中发现的保存完好的昆虫化石来填补所谓的古新世缺口。该省拥有与许多煤层相关的琥珀矿床，在过去十年中挖掘出的许多恐龙或脊椎动物骨床中也收集了琥珀。将琥珀作为化石资源进行开发，将有助于深入了解现代昆虫的进化关系和栖息地分布。它还将提供一种手段来评估晚白垩纪生态变化和白垩纪末灭绝事件对最重要的陆生动物群体的影响。这项工作的成果将引起包括古生物学家、进化生物学家和地质学家在内的广泛科学家的兴趣，但也将对研究现代昆虫群体、它们之间的关系以及某些昆虫作为杀虫剂替代品的应用的研究人员产生影响。

Modern insect faunas are dominated by four hyper-diverse insect orders that grew in diversity alongside the rise of flowering plants, in the Mesozoic or 'Age of Dinosaurs'. These insect groups (beetles, flies, true bugs, plus the order containing ants, wasps, and bees) are major contributors to terrestrial ecosystems, and have significant ecological and economic importance, yet our understanding of their evolutionary relationships and responses to past events is limited by their fossil record. One of the largest gaps in the fossil record of insects stems from a near-absence of data spanning more than ten million years, preceding the end-Cretaceous extinction event and within the subsequent Paleocene epoch. The goal of the proposed research is to fill the so-called Paleocene Gap with well-preserved insect fossils recovered from the numerous fragile ambers of Saskatchewan. The province contains amber deposits in association with many of its coal seams, and amber has also been collected from many of the dinosaur or vertebrate bonebeds that have been excavated within the past decade. Developing amber as a fossil resource will provide insights into the evolutionary relationships and habitat distributions of modern insects. It will also provide a means to assess the impact of Late Cretaceous ecological changes and the end-Cretaceous extinction event on arguably the most important group of terrestrial animals. The outcomes of this work will be of interest to a broad range of scientists, including palaeontologists, evolutionary biologists and geologists, but will also have implications for researchers working on modern insect groups, their relationships, and the application of certain insects as an alternative to pesticides.