Response of Individual Mammal Species to Late Quaternary Environmental Fluctuations

拉塞尔·格雷厄姆博士(伊利诺伊州立博物馆)和欧内斯特·伦德利乌斯博士(德克萨斯纪念博物馆)提议建立一个美国冰河时代晚期哺乳动物化石数据库。有关物种身份、年龄、岩石类型、保存和古环境数据的数据将从文献来源和博物馆收藏品中汇编，并将输入伊利诺伊州博物馆的地理信息系统。10名区域协调员(外加4名从事类似项目的加拿大人)将审查数据质量，并将参加监督该项目的年度讲习班。一旦建立，拟议的数据库将在脊椎动物古生物学、古生态学以及与全球变化倡议相关的关键领域，如气候动力学、保护生物学和对气候变化的生态响应等领域产生巨大影响。这个数据库将提供给各种各样的研究人员，他们将把它作为一种分类资源，作为对气候模型的测试，并作为一种日益增长的跨学科研究资源。

Drs. Russell Graham (Illinois State Museum) and Ernest Lundelius (Texas Memorial Museum) propose to construct a database of late Ice Age Fossil mammals from the United States. Data on species identities, age, rock types, preservation, and paleonenvironmental data will be compiled from literature sources and museum collections, and will be entered into the Illinois State Museum's Geographic Information System. Ten regional coordinators (plus four Canadians working on a similar project) will review the data quality and will participate in yearly workshops to oversee the project. Once established, the proposed database will have tremendous impact in vertebrate paleontology, paleoecology, and the critical fields relating to the Global Change Initiative, such as climate dynamics, conservation biology, and ecological responses to climatic change. This database will be available to a wide variety of investigators who will come to rely on it as a taxonomic resource, as a test for climate models, and as a growing resource for interdisciplinary research.