RUI: Paleoautecology and Biofacies of North African Eocene Echinoidea

非洲始新世海胆动物群是世界上最丰富的动物群之一，有145种来自始新世各个阶段的spatangoids。在埃及的spatangoid分布的初步分析表明，在始新世的地理区域存在不同的海胆群落，这些是不同地区的沉积物类型的差异的结果。穴居海胆，特别是spatangoids，具有测试功能，其功能与沉积物中，他们生活的关系是很好的理解。我建议分析埃及和其他非洲物种的功能形态，以确定其基板的喜好。将绘制每个取样地点动物群中具有特定沉积物偏好的物种的比例，以确定沉积物的地理分布是否与明显的动物群特征相对应，以及含有这些沉积物的岩石是否证实根据海胆形态推断的沉积相。关于全球范围内的地理分布的原因的推断需要在地层学和生态学上很好地理解的样本，例如将由本研究产生的样本。

The Eocene echinoid fauna of Africa is among the richest in the world with 145 nominal species of spatangoids from all Eocene stages. Preliminary analyses of spatangoid distributions in Egypt suggest that there existed in the Eocene geographic regions with distinct echinoid communities, and that these were a result of differences in sediment type in different regions. Burrowing echinoids, particularly spatangoids, have test features whose functional relationship with the sediment in which they live is well understood. I propose to analyze functional morphology of Egyptian and other African species to determine their substrate preferences. The proportions of species with specific sediment preferences in the fauna of each sampling locality will be plotted to see if any geographic distribution of sediment corresponds to the apparent faunal distinctiveness and rocks containing them will confirm inferences of sedimentary facies from echinoid morphology. Inferences about the causes for biogeographic distributions on a global scale require stratigraphically and ecologically well understood samples such as will be generated by this research.