Doctoral Dissertation Research: Optimal time scales for integrating paleoecological and fossil data in human evolutionary studies

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。人类有一套独特的生物适应性，其中许多可以在灵长类动物和人类进化化石记录的不同点上观察到。为了研究这些适应是如何以及为什么发生的，科学家不仅要考虑化石本身，还要考虑它们的生态和环境背景，这一点至关重要。这个博士论文项目解决了关于研究早期人类与其环境之间联系的最佳时间尺度的重要问题。研究人员利用高分辨率地质沉积物的数据，在不同的观测尺度上重建和分析环境变化，并考虑不同的模式是如何根据尺度而出现的。该项目还包括为学生提供培训和指导、公共科学推广活动以及加强国际研究合作的机会。对大型和小规模古生态趋势的解释是为了评估规模如何影响对哺乳动物饮食生态学的解释，以及在一个相对连续的地质序列中，猿类和人类化石已经被恢复的早期人类环境。研究人员开发了8个食草动物谱系在13-8.5 Ma和5.3-1.6 Ma期间的长期、粗略解决的饮食数据。他们为4-2 Ma的食草动物开发了暂时精炼的短期饮食数据。每个化石样本都与一个特定的地质层相关联——随后是一个特定的年代——详细的古气候和古植物学数据已经发表。该项目使单个动物的饮食能够被重建到植被类型的水平，然后与杰出的古气候数据集进行比较，以便更好地了解该地区古生态变化的主要模式。这些数据可以在不同时间尺度上推进古生态模式的整合，以帮助阐明古人类和类人猿谱系所经历的环境选择力的类型。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2). Humans have a unique suite of biological adaptations, many of which can be observed at various points in the primate and human evolutionary fossil record. To investigate how and why these adaptations occurred, it is critical that scientists consider not only the fossils themselves but their ecological and environmental contexts. This doctoral dissertation project addresses important questions about the optimal time scale(s) for investigating links between early humans and their environments. The investigators use data from high-resolution geological sediments to reconstruct and analyze environmental change at various scales of observation and consider how different patterns emerge depending on scale. The project also includes opportunities for student training and mentoring, public science outreach activities, and strengthening of international research collaborations.Interpretations of large- and small-scale paleoecological trends are developed to assess how scale may influence interpretations of mammalian dietary ecology, as well as early human environments within a relatively continuous geologic sequence where fossil apes and humans have been recovered. The investigators develop long-term, coarsely resolved dietary data for 8 herbivore lineages for periods from 13-8.5 Ma and 5.3-1.6 Ma. They develop temporally refined, short-term dietary data for herbivores from 4-2 Ma. Each fossil sample is correlated to a specific geologic horizon— and subsequently a specific date—for which detailed paleoclimatic and paleobotanical data have been published. The project enables the diets of individual animals to be reconstructed to the level of vegetation type and then be compared to outstanding paleoclimatic datasets in order to better understand prevailing modes of paleoecological change in the region. These data can advance the integration of paleoecological patterns at various temporal scales to help clarify the types of environmentally-selective forces experienced by the hominin and hominoid lineages.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.