The earliest exploration of land by animals: from trace fossils to numerical analyses

这项提议旨在解决一个重要的长期存在的古生物学问题，即地球历史上最早进行陆地探索的动物的时间和性质。这项提议的主要重点是利用痕迹化石，结合尖端的理论和数值方法，识别陆地上动物活动留下的最早痕迹，确定其可能的痕迹制造者，并确定它们的机动性和感官能力。这项工作将涉及将数学和计算力学的概念和方法与古生物学和沉积学的方法相结合，从而建立一个新的定量生物框架。为实现这一目标，我将：(1)利用统计学方法建立一套能够定量确定遗迹化石生产者的指标；(2)建立半分辨的计算流体动力学-离散元耦合方法来再现陆地、水下和微生物席上的遗迹形成；(3)进行量纲分析，以找出遗迹化石不稳定性(陆地遗迹的指示器)、动物迁移性和环境参数之间的尺度规律；以及(4)利用所获得的尺度规律来研究埃迪卡拉纪和寒武纪的假定陆地遗迹。该项目将加强定量科学领域的研究，在地球科学、进化生物学和行为学方面具有广泛的影响。这个项目将使我能够发展成为一名独立的跨学科研究员，在古生物学、计算力学和进化生物学领域工作，最终使我能够建立自己的国际研究团队。

This proposal aims to address an important long-standing palaeontological question concerning the timing and nature of the animals who undertook the earliest explorations on land in Earth's history. The main focus of this proposal is to use trace fossils, combined with cutting-edge theoretical and numerical approaches, to identify the earliest traces left by the movement of animals on land, to determine their putative trace makers, and to establish their mobility and sensory capabilities. This work will involve integrating concepts and methods from mathematics and computational mechanics with palaeontological and sedimentological approaches, thereby establishing a new quantitative ichnological framework. To achieve this I will: (1) use statistical approaches to establish a set of metrics that can quantitatively identify the producer of trace fossils; (2) establish a semi-resolved coupled Computational Fluid Dynamics-Discrete Element Method to reproduce trace formation on land, under water and on microbial mats; (3) conduct a dimensional analysis to find out the scaling law relating trace fossil instability (an indicator of terrestrial traces), animal mobility and environmental parameters; and finally (4) use the obtained scaling law to investigate putative terrestrial traces from the Ediacaran and Cambrian periods. This project will enhance research in the area of quantitative ichnology, with broad implications in the Earth sciences, evolutionary biology and ethology. This project will enable me to develop as an independent interdisciplinary researcher working across palaeontology, computational mechanics and evolutionary biology, ultimately allowing me to establish my own international research team.