Postdoctoral Fellowship: EAR-PF: Evolution and ecology of early mammal communities in North America: insights from a Late Jurassic fossil assemblage
Ente: GWF-Geosciences Workforce
Scadenza: 2028-08-31
Importo max: 383.586 EUR
Paese: US
Descrizione
Studying ancient fossil communities helps us to understand how the diversity of life on Earth has been sustained through our planet’s history. North America boasts an incredible fossil record of mammals from the Age of Dinosaurs, including sites of remarkable preservation such as the Fruita Paleontological Area of Colorado. This research program will add significant curatorial data to the fossil collections from this paleontological area that are housed at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County. The project will benefit society by creating new knowledge of the evolution and ecology of mammals during the Age of Dinosaurs, while enhancing public museum collections for outreach and education. A postdoctoral fellow will be mentored through the research and education activities, who will also contribute to training for graduate and undergraduate students to become future leaders in the geoscience workforce.
The postdoctoral fellow will study fossil collections from the Fruita Paleontological Area housed Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County Dinosaur Institute, and use the data generated to test hypotheses about the relationship between taxonomic and functional diversity in early mammal communities. These fossil collections are ideal for studying Mesozoic biodiversity and biogeography because of their abundance of mammal and non-mammal fossils, preservation of cranial and post-cranial specimens, and well-described sedimentary facies. The postdoctoral fellow will 1) characterize the taxonomic and functional diversity of the Fruita Paleontological Area; 2) compare the biodiversity of the Fruita Paleontological Area to other stem mammal sites and 3) describe new species in the fossil collections of the Dinosaur Institute. This project will use micro-computed tomography imaging to create 3D models of fossil dentition. These tooth models will be analyzed to calculate functional and morphological diversity using dental topographical analyses. The results will be used to compare the biodiversity of the Fruita Paleontological Area to other Jurassic microvertebrate sites from North America to better understand mammalian evolutionary history and biogeography during the Age of Dinosaurs. The postdoctoral fellow will also serve as a mentor for undergraduate and graduate students at the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County and contribute to community outreach and geoscience communication at the museum.
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.
Istituzione: Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History Foundation
Sede: LOS ANGELES, CA
PI: Isaac Magallanes
Settori: Geosciences
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