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Articles 1 - 13 of 13
Full-Text Articles in Paleobiology
Human Impacts On Mammal Diversity From The Pleistocene To The Present, Carson P. Hedberg
Human Impacts On Mammal Diversity From The Pleistocene To The Present, Carson P. Hedberg
Biology ETDs
Humans have fundamentally altered the planet’s biodiversity. It is critical to characterize these changes, but also to understand how they impact the structure and function of modern ecosystems. This dissertation investigates how anthropogenically mediated species losses and/or introductions influence ecological function and community structure in mammals across multiple temporal and spatial scales. We found that selective loss of large-bodied mammals over the Late Quaternary has led to severe losses in functional diversity in modern ecosystems, suggesting megafaunal mammals contribute distinct ecological functions. These changes to mammal diversity and distribution over millennia have altered both global patterns in functional diversity and …
Sub-Stage Climatic Shifts During Mis 11 Refined From Diatom Assemblage Reconstruction In The Valles Caldera, New Mexico, Savannah Cutler
Sub-Stage Climatic Shifts During Mis 11 Refined From Diatom Assemblage Reconstruction In The Valles Caldera, New Mexico, Savannah Cutler
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
Diatom assemblage reconstruction from the Valles Caldera sediment core (VC-3) was utilized to infer climatic and aquatic changes during a 50-thousand-year [ka] period in the Mid-Pleistocene (435-385 ka). This 50 ka interval spans most of Marine Isotope Stage 11 (MIS 11) – one of the most prominent interglacials of the past 500 ka – and is widely considered an analog for the Holocene and future climate regimes. Nearly all records from MIS 11 are either marine or ice-core based, making VC-3 unique among lacustrine sediment records as it captures insolation variations and climatic changes during the mid-Pleistocene. Analysis of the …
Testing The Niche Center Hypothesis In The Fossil Record Of Atlantic Bivalves, Rhiannon Z. Nolan
Testing The Niche Center Hypothesis In The Fossil Record Of Atlantic Bivalves, Rhiannon Z. Nolan
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
Paleoecological analyses of six shallow marine bivalves were conducted to test the Abundant Center Hypothesis using data from the fossil record of the Pleistocene through modern day. This hypothesis predicts the highest abundance of a species is at the center of the geographic or environmental range, decreasing toward the edges. In geographic space, distances to a centerline within a geographic range were variably correlated with population abundances, and some species displayed a sharp drop-off in abundance as distance increased. In environmental space, bivalve species showed moderate correlations between abundance and centrality when measured using cumulative data across the last 2.8 …
Ontogenetic Niche Shift As A Driver Of Community Structure And Diversity In Non-Avian Dinosaurs, Katlin M. Schroeder
Ontogenetic Niche Shift As A Driver Of Community Structure And Diversity In Non-Avian Dinosaurs, Katlin M. Schroeder
Biology ETDs
As some of the most charismatic megafauna to ever walk the earth, the physiology, morphology, growth and evolution of non-avian theropods has been studied exhaustively, yet little is understood about their roles in ecosystems as juveniles. For carnivorous megatheropods, which exceed 1,000kg in mass yet hatched from eggs of limited size, the likelihood of utilizing different prey through ontogeny was high, simply by proxy of the immense difference in size between adults and juveniles. We found these ontogenetic niche shifts, evidenced by significantly different dental microwear in Tyrannosaurids, to have excluded dinosaurian mesocarnivores from Mesozoic communities. The few dinosaurian mesocarnivores …
Effects Of Environmental Change On Ancestral Pueblo Fishing In The Middle Rio Grande, Jonathan William Dombrosky
Effects Of Environmental Change On Ancestral Pueblo Fishing In The Middle Rio Grande, Jonathan William Dombrosky
Anthropology ETDs
It has long been assumed that fishes were unimportant in the diet of past Pueblo people in the U.S. Southwest. Yet, small numbers of fish remains are consistently recovered from Late pre-Hispanic/Early Historic archaeological sites in the Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico. The end of drought conditions may have impacted food choice and fishing decisions during this time. I use behavioral ecology to understand how fishing could have been an optimal food-getting strategy for Ancestral Pueblo farmers. Stable isotope analysis offers a way to account for environmental change. I provide a refined 13C Suess correction model to support …
Diversity – Independent Factors Predict Elevated Extinction Rates, Dustin Perriguey, Corinne Myers, Jason Moore, Louis Scuderi
Diversity – Independent Factors Predict Elevated Extinction Rates, Dustin Perriguey, Corinne Myers, Jason Moore, Louis Scuderi
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
Multiple linear regression was used to determine the relationships between diversity-independent factors (i.e., abiotic, climatic) 2, 5, and 10 Myrs-prior to the most elevated Phanerozoic extinctions. We constructed five abiotic variables from Phanerozoic proxy records1–5 to compare to extinction rates: mean temperature, temperature instability, carbon cycle instability, continental weathering rates, and habitat instability. All three models were statistically significant (P < 0.05) and explained > 70% of the variation in Alroy’s6 three-timer generic extinction rates. However, the 2 Myr-prior model explained the most variance in extinction rates and had the most predictive power, based on adjusted and predictive R2 (~ 72% and 41%, respectively). Carbon …
Diversity – Independent Factors Predict Elevated Extinction Rates, Dustin Perriguey
Diversity – Independent Factors Predict Elevated Extinction Rates, Dustin Perriguey
Earth and Planetary Sciences Faculty and Staff Publications
Multiple linear regression was used to determine the relationships between diversity-independent factors (i.e., abiotic, climatic) 2, 5, and 10 Myrs-prior to the most elevated Phanerozoic extinctions. We constructed five abiotic variables from Phanerozoic proxy records1–5 to compare to extinction rates: mean temperature, temperature instability, carbon cycle instability, continental weathering rates, and habitat instability. All three models were statistically significant (P < 0.05) and explained > 70% of the variation in Alroy’s6 three-timer generic extinction rates. However, the 2 Myr-prior model explained the most variance in extinction rates and had the most predictive power, based on adjusted and predictive R2 (~ 72% and 41%, respectively). Carbon …
Niche Dynamics Of The Felid Guild Following The Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinction, Nicholas A. Freymueller
Niche Dynamics Of The Felid Guild Following The Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinction, Nicholas A. Freymueller
Biology ETDs
The loss of large carnivores is fundamentally restructuring modern mammal communities. However, large carnivore removal is not exclusively a modern trend. The Pleistocene Megafaunal Extinction (PME) resulted in a near-eradication of hyper-carnivorous felids such as saber-toothed cats. However, it is unclear if smaller surviving meso-felids began to infill this ecological vacuum post-PME. I apply Ecological Niche Modeling (ENM) to test evaluate whether surviving felids filled in vacant niches post-extinction, and hypothesize that they ought to have shown increased niche-overlap patterns with mega-felids post-extinction. I model species’ fundamental niches using a multi-temporal approach, and develop a novel test to model realized …
Faunal Remains From Archaeology Sites In Southwestern New Mexico, Karen Gust Schollmeyer, S. O. Macdonald
Faunal Remains From Archaeology Sites In Southwestern New Mexico, Karen Gust Schollmeyer, S. O. Macdonald
Occasional Papers
This study attempts to create a comprehensive catalog of all known records of faunal remains recovered from 105 archaeological sites located across southwestern New Mexico. These sites range in age from 2000BC to AD 1450. Approximately 250 taxa of mollusks, fishes, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals are represented in this compilation. Primary reference materials from published and unpublished sources are included, along with the repositories where relevant collections may be found for potential reexamination by researchers from a variety of fields of interest.
Eutherian Biogeography During The Puercan North American Land Mammal Age (Paleocene, Earliest Danian): Problems And Potential Solutions, Jason Sterling Silviria
Eutherian Biogeography During The Puercan North American Land Mammal Age (Paleocene, Earliest Danian): Problems And Potential Solutions, Jason Sterling Silviria
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
The Puercan North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA) is the earliest major North American terrestrial biochron of the Cenozoic era, spanning roughly the first one million years of the Paleogene period (Paleocene epoch, Danian stage; ~66.04-65.12 Ma). It is typified by the explosive ecomorphological diversification of the mammalian clade Eutheria (particularly our subclade, Placentalia), following the annihilation of non-avian dinosaurs and “archaic” mammal groups during the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction event. The spatiotemporal mode and tempo of Puercan eutherian diversification has long been the subject of debate, with disagreements over biogeographic zonation. The traditional model – based largely on well-sampled, …
Constraining The Oxygen Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Using Marine Bivalves, Camille H. Dwyer
Constraining The Oxygen Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Using Marine Bivalves, Camille H. Dwyer
Earth and Planetary Sciences ETDs
The Western Interior Seaway (WIS) remains an oceanographic enigma, including its circulation, similarity to the open ocean, and the fidelity of geochemical proxies to reconstruct paleoenvironments. Across the late Campanian and early Maastrichtian I test whether: 1) the WIS had unique δ18OVPDB compared to other marine settings, 2) increasing oceanographic restriction changed the stable isotope composition, and 3) biases, e.g., taxonomy or diagenesis, influenced stable isotope compositions. Results indicate distinct δ18OVPDB in the WIS compared to other marine settings. δ18OVPDB values were stable through time, suggesting insignificant oceanographic restriction and a …
Are The Oxygen Isotope Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Different From The Open Ocean?, Camille H. Dwyer, Corinne Myers, Viorel Atudorei
Are The Oxygen Isotope Values Of The Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway Different From The Open Ocean?, Camille H. Dwyer, Corinne Myers, Viorel Atudorei
Shared Knowledge Conference
The Western Interior Seaway (WIS) was a North American epicontinental sea that was connected to the open ocean through the passage of the northern Boreal Sea and the southern Tethys Sea from the early Albian (~113 million years ago) to the early Paleogene (~65 million years ago). The WIS began to recced and lost its connection to the southern Tethys Sea in the late Campanian (~72 million years ago). In the early Paleogene, the WIS dried up completely. The oxygen isotopic composition (δ18O) of benthic bivalves was measured from the upper Campanian and lower Maastrichtian (75 million years ago to …
Mainland Southeast Asia In The Longue Durée: A Zooarchaeological Test Of The "Broad Spectrum Revolution" In Northern Thailand, Cyler Norman Conrad
Mainland Southeast Asia In The Longue Durée: A Zooarchaeological Test Of The "Broad Spectrum Revolution" In Northern Thailand, Cyler Norman Conrad
Anthropology ETDs
In northern Thailand, previous zooarchaeological research suggests that hunter-gatherers consumed a broad diversity of animal resources during the Pleistocene-Holocene transition and afterwards (Gorman 1971a). This is a pattern characteristic of Kent Flannery’s (1969) “broad spectrum revolution” hypothesis. Based primarily on presence and absence evidence, faunal assemblages in northern Thailand typically include species of mammals, reptiles, birds, fish and shellfish, suggesting that prehistoric foragers consumed a wide range of taxa within this mainland Southeast Asian tropical environment. Although zooarchaeological analyses commonly identify this pattern within prehistoric cave and rockshelter sites, past investigations have 1) not attempted to formally test Flannery’s hypothesis, …