Primate Paleoenvironments in the East African Early Miocene

点击翻译按钮获取中文摘要

The catarrhines are the group of primates comprising the cercopithecoid monkeys, apes, and humans. My research program is focused on understanding the evolution of these primates, in particular why monkeys and apes have such different adaptations, and how ancient environments have shaped those adaptions. Much of my research focuses on the fossil record from the early Miocene of East Africa (~23 - 16 Ma) because this is the time and place where apes and monkeys diverge, and this evolutionary event is well represented by a rich catarrhine primate fossil record.The goal of this 5-year project is to understand how changes in East African environments throughout the early Miocene have impacted catarrhine evolution. I will consider both the physical environments that catarrhines evolved in, but also the biotic landscape (e.g. community structure). I will conduct fieldwork at fossil localities in West Turkana (Kenya) that sample a poorly known stratigraphic interval in the early Miocene of Kenya (16.8 - 17.5 Ma). The data collected from fieldwork, combined with existing data from other East African Miocene localities, will be used to test the hypothesis that Miocene catarrhine primates lived in a variety of environments, and were utilizing more open habitats. Traditionally, early catarrhine primates were thought to have lived in forested habitats, so this would represent a fundamental shift in adaptation. My trainees and I will test this central hypothesis through three interconnected projects. First, we will develop improved tools for studying environmental change by examining the ecomorphology of ungulate limbs and teeth. Second, we will combine the data collected from these novel ecomorphological analyses with geological data and isotopic analyses of tooth enamel in order to characterize local environmental conditions at our West Turkana fossil localities. Finally, we will combine this new environmental data for West Turkana with existing data from other early Miocene fossil localities in East Africa to examine environmental and biotic change on a large temporal and spatial scale. The dataset generated from these integrated analyses will provide a powerful tool for examining climate change through time to determine how it maps on to changes in primate communities and adaptations.This research program is transformative because of its potential to fundamentally alter our understanding of the original adaptive niche of the African apes, including our own ancestors. I will develop new ecomorphological tools and apply cutting edge analytical methods to study environmental change on both local and regional spatial and temporal scales. Because the fossil primates I study include the likely ancestors of the human lineage, the results of this research will also have broader implications for understanding how humans have adapted to climate change in the past and will continue to do so in the future.