The Small Mammals of the Paisley and Connley Caves: Disentangling Drivers of Diversity in Pleistocene Extinction Survivors

该项目将测试在过去17000年里，气候变化和人类是如何改变小型哺乳动物群落的。古生物学研究大大增加了我们对气候变化的生态影响和上一个冰河时代末期大型哺乳动物灭绝的理解。然而，关于气候变化、人类影响和大型哺乳动物的消失如何塑造了最小的灭绝幸存者的生态，我们知之甚少：3公斤以下的哺乳动物（如松鼠、老鼠和小鼠）。尽管小型哺乳动物在生态系统中扮演着重要而多样的角色。这种知识差距不仅是古生物学的问题；生态学家也不完全了解气候变化和人类影响正在以直接和间接的方式改变我们今天生活的生态系统。研究最小的哺乳动物如何应对重大的生态破坏，将有助于我们更好地预测今天的哺乳动物群落在未来可能发生的变化。这一点很重要，因为今天的生态系统经常以我们无法单独利用气候变化来预测的方式变化。除了测试小型哺乳动物群落如何随着时间的推移而变化之外，该项目还将开发一个虚拟实地考察，让参与者了解大盆地的自然和文化历史。该活动将为本科生和研究生以及博士后研究员提供培训，并吸引俄勒冈州农村学校的小学生和教师。为了应对这一挑战，本研究将利用佩斯利和康利洞穴的古生物学和考古学记录。这些洞穴位于大盆地的西北部，这是一个现在受到威胁的生态区域，是西半球人类的中心。化石将被用来估计从17000年前到今天的小型哺乳动物群落的多样性和功能。对这些化石进行放射性碳定年，并对现代小型哺乳动物进行调查，将有助于回答有关气候变化和人类存在如何共同影响过去和现在的生物多样性的问题。这项研究还将研究今天的小型哺乳动物群落与欧洲人接触之前的情况有何不同。因此，这项研究将突出博物馆收藏的重要性和化石对现代保护工作的价值。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。

The project will test how climate change and humans have altered small mammal communities over the last 17,000 years. Paleontological studies have greatly increased our understanding of the ecological impacts of climate change and the extinction of large-bodied mammals at the end of the last Ice Age. Little is known, however, about how climate change, human impacts, and the loss of large mammals have shaped the ecology of the smallest extinction survivors: mammals under 3 kilograms (e.g., squirrels, rats and mice). This is despite the important and diverse roles that small mammals play in ecosystems. This knowledge gap is not only a problem for paleontology; ecologists also don’t fully understand the direct and indirect ways that climate change and human impacts are changing the ecosystems in which we live today. Studying how the smallest mammals have responded to major ecological disruption will thus help us better predict how mammalian communities today are likely to shift in the future. This is important because ecosystems today are often changing in ways we cannot predict using climate change alone. In addition to testing how small mammal communities have changed over time, this project will develop a Virtual Field Trip that will educate participants on the Great Basin’s natural and cultural histories. This activity will provide training to undergraduate and graduate students and a postdoctoral researcher and engage elementary age students and teachers in rural Oregon schools.To meet this challenge, this research will use the paleontological and archaeological records of the Paisley and Connley Caves. The caves are in the northwestern Great Basin, a now-threatened ecoregion that was central to the peopling of the Western Hemisphere. Fossils will be used to estimate the diversity and function of small mammal communities from 17,000 years ago to today. Radiocarbon dating of these fossils, and surveys of modern small mammals, will help answer questions about how climate change and human presence have together shaped biodiversity in the past and the present. The research will also study how small mammal communities today differ from what they were like just before European contact. Thus, the research will highlight the importance of museum collections and the value of fossils for Modern conservation efforts.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.