Late Cretaceous and Paleocene amber deposits in western Canada

**在中生代或“恐龙时代”，随着开花植物的兴起，现代昆虫动物群以四种高度多样化的昆虫目为主。这些昆虫类群（甲虫、苍蝇、真虫，以及蚂蚁、黄蜂和蜜蜂）是陆地生态系统的主要贡献者，具有重要的生态和经济意义，但我们对它们的进化关系和对过去事件的反应的理解受限于它们的化石记录。昆虫化石记录中最大的空白之一是，在白垩纪末灭绝事件之前和随后的古新世期间，几乎没有跨越1000多万年的数据。这项研究的目标是用从萨斯喀彻温省大量脆弱的琥珀中发现的保存完好的昆虫化石来填补所谓的古新世空白。该省的许多煤层都含有琥珀矿床，在过去的十年里，人们还从许多恐龙或脊椎动物的骨床中发现了琥珀。将琥珀作为一种化石资源进行开发，将有助于了解现代昆虫的进化关系和栖息地分布。它还将提供一种方法来评估白垩纪晚期生态变化和白垩纪末期灭绝事件对最重要的陆生动物群体的影响。这项工作的结果将引起广泛的科学家的兴趣，包括古生物学家、进化生物学家和地质学家，但也将对研究现代昆虫类群、它们之间的关系以及某些昆虫作为杀虫剂替代品的应用的研究人员产生影响。

**Modern insect faunas are dominated by four hyper-diverse insect orders that grew in diversity alongside the rise of flowering plants, in the Mesozoic or 'Age of Dinosaurs'. These insect groups (beetles, flies, true bugs, plus the order containing ants, wasps, and bees) are major contributors to terrestrial ecosystems, and have significant ecological and economic importance, yet our understanding of their evolutionary relationships and responses to past events is limited by their fossil record. One of the largest gaps in the fossil record of insects stems from a near-absence of data spanning more than ten million years, preceding the end-Cretaceous extinction event and within the subsequent Paleocene epoch. The goal of the proposed research is to fill the so-called Paleocene Gap with well-preserved insect fossils recovered from the numerous fragile ambers of Saskatchewan. The province contains amber deposits in association with many of its coal seams, and amber has also been collected from many of the dinosaur or vertebrate bonebeds that have been excavated within the past decade. Developing amber as a fossil resource will provide insights into the evolutionary relationships and habitat distributions of modern insects. It will also provide a means to assess the impact of Late Cretaceous ecological changes and the end-Cretaceous extinction event on arguably the most important group of terrestrial animals. The outcomes of this work will be of interest to a broad range of scientists, including palaeontologists, evolutionary biologists and geologists, but will also have implications for researchers working on modern insect groups, their relationships, and the application of certain insects as an alternative to pesticides.