Evolution of Gastropod-shell inhabiting organisms, preservational constraints and ecological opportunities

这个项目调查了 亚热带和热带中新世至 作为生态机会函数的新近纪组合 寄居蟹造成的偏见。 PI将研究与海洋公会有关的贝壳生物 寄居蟹，活蜗牛，空的和实验性的栓系 两种生境（岩石潮间带和沙滩）中的贝壳 墨西哥佩纳斯科。 我会找出与每个贝壳有关的生化人公会 并制定标准，使这些外壳居住者 （蜗牛或寄居蟹）及其潜在栖息地，可以 在化石记录中被发现。 然后我将利用化石记录来确定， 生物是（1）作为行会经常性的或随着时间的推移而变化， 结果寄居蟹提供了一种新的基板（空的 腹足类壳），（2）足以区分进化 寄居蟹的历史，以及（3）表明有多少 腹足类化石记录受到寄居蟹的影响， 可能偏向腹足类古生态学 寄居蟹可能 在贝壳生物群中引起了进化上的突破， 生物群，反过来，可能是指示鲜为人知的化石， 寄居蟹的历史和它们的壳在时间上的使用。 研究将解决生态相互作用如何改变 穿越时空

This project investigates the evolutionary patterns of gastropod shell biota from subtropical and tropical Miocene to Recene assemblanges as a function of ecological opportunities and preservational biases created by hermit crabs. PI will study shell bionts associated with a guild of marine hermit crabs, living snails, empty and experimental tethered shells in two habitats (rocky intertidal and sandflat) in Purerto Penasco, Mexico. I will identify guilds of bionts associated with each shell inhabitant and formulate criteria by which these shell occupants (snail or hermit crab), and their prospective habitats, can be recognized in the fossil record. I will then determine, using the fossil record, if these bionts are (1) recurrent as guilds or change through time as a result of hermit crabs providing a novel substrate (the empty gastropod shell), (2) adequate to distingush the evolutionary history of the hermit crab, and (3) indicative of how much the gastropod fossil record has been biased by hermit crabs, thus potentially biasing gastropod paleoecology. Hermit crabs may have caused evolutionary breakthroughs in shell biota and this biota, in turn, may be indicative of the little known fossil history of hermit crabs and their shell use through time. Research will address how ecoligcal interactions may have changed through time.