Eocene-Oligocene primate evolution and climate change in the Fayum Depression, northern Egypt

这项研究将在埃及北方的法尤姆地区进行，这是一个正在进行的国际合作古生物学项目的一部分，该项目涉及美国和埃及的科学家。法尤姆地区以其脊椎动物化石而闻名于世，这些化石的年龄从3700万年到2900万年不等，并且以其独特的能力记录了我们早期灵长类祖先在哺乳动物进化史上的一个关键阶段，即渐新世早期气候变冷时期的进化和适应。 在法尤姆记录中保存的长达800万年的时间间隔中，包括最完整的古近纪狐猴化石，非洲最古老的狐猴化石，以及已知最古老的链鼻猴灵长类动物亲属，如狐猴和懒猴。这些完整的化石所揭示的信息为科学家们提供了对早期古生物学、生态学和生物发生学的无与伦比的见解。在三年的野外工作中，美国和埃及的脊椎动物古生物学家、古植物学家和地球化学家团队将收集更多的脊椎动物和植物化石，并在整个法尤姆演替过程中采集古气候数据（稳定同位素）。这些数据将被用来测试各种假设有关的进化和灵长类动物和非灵长类哺乳动物在晚古近纪，以及非洲植物和动物群落的进化反应，当地的环境变化来自一个重要的全球气候变化时期。这些问题具有广泛的古人类学和古生物学意义，其核心目标包括：1）阐明非洲早期哺乳动物的进化历史，记录我们早期哺乳动物祖先生活的哺乳动物群落和环境; 2）分析脊椎动物和植物对始新世附近已知气候变化的响应-渐新世边界。研究的进行将支持美国-埃及科学合作的持续发展，该合作将培训来自美国和埃及的几名研究生和早期职业科学家。 学生培训将是研究的各个阶段不可或缺的，并将保持一个强大的传统，将学生从科学代表性不足的群体。 将获得的标本和数据库将很容易共享和访问，加强研究和教育基础设施的未来。

The research to be conducted in the Fayum area of northern Egypt is part of an ongoing, international collaborative paleontological project that involves American and Egyptian scientists. The Fayum area is world-famous for its vertebrate fossils, which range in age from about 37 to 29 million years of age, and for its unique capacity to document the evolution and adaptation of our early anthropoid primate ancestors during a critical phase in mammalian evolutionary history, the early Oligocene period of climatic cooling. Included among the remarkable ~8 million-year-long interval preserved in the Fayum record are the most complete remains of Paleogene anthropoids, the oldest undoubted anthropoids from Africa, and the oldest known relatives of strepsirrhine primates such as lemurs and lorises. The information that has been revealed by such complete fossils has given scientists unparalleled insights into early anthropoid biology, ecology, and phylogeny.Over the course of three years of fieldwork, the team of American and Egyptian vertebrate paleontologists, paleobotanists, and geochemists will collect additional vertebrate and plant fossils, and sample for paleoclimatic data (stable isotopes) throughout the Fayum succession. These data will be employed to test various hypotheses relating to the evolution and biogeography of primates and non-primate mammals during the later Paleogene, as well as the evolutionary response of African plant and animal communities to local environmental changes deriving from a significant period of global climate change. The questions to be addressed are of broad paleoanthropological and paleontological significance, and include the core specific aims of 1) the illumination of early anthropoid evolutionary history in Africa and documentation of the mammalian communities and environments in which our early anthropoid ancestors lived; and 2) analysis of the responses of vertebrates and plants to the climatic alterations known to have occurred near the Eocene-Oligocene boundary.The conduct of the research will support the continued development of an American-Egyptian scientific collaboration that will train several graduate students and early career scientists from the US and Egypt. Student training will be integral to all phases of the research, and will maintain a strong tradition of incorporating students from underrepresented groups in science. The specimens and databases to be obtained will be readily shared and accessed, enhancing research and educational infrastructure well into the future.