I’m working on understanding the evolutionary consequences of ecological specialization at the earliest stages of the Cenozoic radiation of placental mammals. I’m focusing on the Paleocene (66-56 mya) record of the Bighorn Basin (Wyoming), and working to understand the dietary ecologies of the species present at that time, changes in community composition, and how those may have been influenced by changing environments.
What is ecological specialization and how can you measure this in extinct animals?
Ecological specialization refers to the idea that a species relies on a small set of resources / habitats in order to survive (think of a giant panda— they eat almost exclusively bamboo and they are really good at doing it!) A generalist species on the other hand can thrive on a number of different resources and live in a variety of habitats (think of a raccoon, they can live almost anywhere, eating almost anything).
We can get a sense of the ecologies of ancient species by looking at their preserved remains, for example the shape and size of teeth can tell us how big an animal was and also what it was eating.
How were you drawn into paleontology?
I’ve always had an interest in biology, but it wasn’t until my undergraduate that I really found what I wanted to work on. I realized that as I was taking classes, and as those classes expanded in perspective (going from Organic Chemistry, to Biochemistry, to Developmental biology) that I was more and more interested in the subject matter and so I decided to study the “biggest picture” questions I could find, i.e. “how and why did life evolve in the way it did?”. And to tackle those kinds of questions you need the perspective of the fossil record.
What do you like the most about your work?
I love the surreal feeling of finding and holding fossils from species that lived tens of millions of years ago; I hope that never gets old!
