Doctoral Dissertation Research: The biogeography and behavioral ecology of Pliocene hominins: A macroecological perspective

最近对早期人类祖先（古人类）的发现突出了了解气候如何影响早期人类进化和行为的重要性。该项目将研究320万至360万年前非洲东部当地栖息地对古人类分布和行为的影响。现代动植物多样性数据将与同一地区古代环境的古生态数据相结合。数据源的创新组合将有助于在更细粒度的时间间隔上重建古代生态。该项目的更广泛影响包括研究生培训，通过博物馆和课程开发进行公共科学推广，以及支持STEM科学中代表性不足的少数民族学生。在这个项目中，目前的植被（来自土壤碳酸盐的同位素）和哺乳动物化石数据库将被标准化，以便在古代栖息地与其相关的哺乳动物群落之间建立分析联系，并深入了解人类生态位的变化。研究人员将结合景观考古学、宏观生态学和地层学等多学科的理论，并在适当的时空尺度上进行分析实验，将古人类与环境代用物（如土壤同位素）联系起来。提出的生态关系在上新世中期（360万至320万年前）尤为重要，当时饮食行为发生了重大变化，可能出现了创新行为，例如在阿法尔盆地使用石器。该项目的数据将通过使用由co-PI使用PostgreSQL软件创建的开源数据库来促进未来生态代理和数据的整合。联合项目负责人与乔治华盛顿大学（GWU）的Koobi Fora Field School和Evolution in Education项目合作，为从学前到大学的学生开发课程，同时也是乔治华盛顿大学（GWU）青年赋权科学家（YES!）项目的共同开发者，通过指导，将代表性不足的少数民族学生带入STEM科学领域。

Recent discoveries of early human ancestors (hominins) highlight the importance of understanding how climate shaped early hominin evolution and behavior. This project will study the ways in which hominin distributions and behavior were shaped by local habitats between 3.2 and 3.6 million years ago in eastern Africa. Data about modern plant and animal diversity will be integrated with paleoecological data for the ancient environment of the same area. The innovative combination of data sources will help to reconstruct ancient ecology at finer-grained time intervals. Broader impacts of the project include graduate training, public science outreach through museums and curriculum development, and support of underrepresented minority students in the STEM sciences. In this project, current vegetation (isotopes from soil carbonates) and fossil mammal databases will be standardized to make analytical connections between ancient habitats and their associated mammal communities and to gain insight into variation of the hominin ecological niche. The investigators will combine theory from multiple disciplines, such as landscape archaeology, macroecology, and taphonomy, and conduct analytical experiments to connect hominins to environmental proxies (such as soil isotopes) at an appropriate temporal and spatial scale. The proposed ecological relationships are especially important to test in the mid-Pliocene (between 3.6 and 3.2 million years ago), when dietary behavior shifted significantly and innovative behaviors may have occurred, such as the use of stone tools in the Afar basin. Data from the project will be curated to promote the integration of future ecological proxies and data through the use of an open source database that will be created by the co-PI, using PostgreSQL software. The co-PI collaborates with the Koobi Fora Field School and the Evolution in Education program at the George Washington University (GWU) to develop curricula for students from pre-school to university levels, and is also the co-developer of the Young Empowered Scientists (YES!) program at GWU to bring underrepresented, minority students into STEM sciences through mentoring.