How are fossil records used to understand current extinction risk and inform conservation decisions at local to global scales? In our review (available early online here), Seth Finnegan, Rowan Lockwood, Heike Lotze, Loren McClenachan, Sara Kahanamoku, and I provide an overview of the ecological and environmental information available in the fossil record and the application of recent and deep time fossil records in species risk assessment and conservation.
Finnegan, S., P.G. Harnik, R. Lockwood, H.K. Lotze, L. McClenachan, and S.S. Kahanamoku. In press. Using the fossil record to understand extinction risk and inform marine conservation in a changing world. Annual Review of Marine Science 16. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-marine-021723-095235 How do environmental conditions influence predator and prey body size? Luke Calderaro ('22), Marina Rillo, and I addressed this question by studying the empty shells of marine bivalves, and the predatory traces (drillholes) left behind by drilling gastropods, at sites located on the continental shelf between Louisiana and Florida. Luke measured more than 3000 bivalve shells and associated traces of drilling predation, and we worked with Marina to compile environmental data for our 15 stations. Using mixed-effects models, we examined the associations between environmental conditions and predator and prey size, while accounting for the sizes of different bivalve genera. Overall, we found that bivalves tend to be larger in low oxygen settings where predation is greatly reduced, and that the sizes of predators and prey tend to increase with sea surface temperature. To learn more, you can read our open-access article in Paleobiology here: link.
Calderaro, L.A., P.G. Harnik, and M.C. Rillo. 2023. Environmental correlates of molluscan predator-prey body size in the northern Gulf of Mexico. Paleobiology. Post by Alexa Russo (Colgate '25)
My time in the Gulf was extremely valuable; from getting to see all the specimens - both ones we study and ones we don’t - up close and personal, to getting to have conversations with crew members, other students, interns, and scientists. While we primarily study marine bivalves (clams) in the Paleo Lab, we can’t control what gets picked up by the box core on the seafloor when we are sampling, which leads to us seeing so many cool critters like crabs, worms, sea stars, and even eels. I was able to learn so much over the course of three weeks, and I really enjoyed hearing about everyone’s interests and specialties, and learning about all the different career paths there are, and all the different fields of study that exist within the marine sciences. I especially enjoyed talking with two scientific scuba divers who helped us collect samples; I had never really thought about how useful scuba diving can be for scientific studies, and we talked about the process of getting certified to dive for scientific purposes. While I personally don’t see myself being a marine scientist in the future as I am more interested in terrestrial paleontology for my future career, the skills I learned from being in the field will be extremely useful in the future regardless of the path I choose to take. I learned new field techniques, ways to collaborate with other scientists, and how scientists may come up with new projects or questions they want to answer. Additionally, I learned a lot about the importance of organization and labeling, even when you’re covered in mud on the back of a boat. After all, if we don’t know exactly where a sample came from, the data we get from it won’t tell us much, especially when we are studying the impact of environmental conditions on marine life. Overall, my experiences in the field will stick with me and be a benefit to my future, and I hope to apply the field skills I learned in the near future. Post by Riley Farbstein (Colgate '24) Before embarking on our trip to the Gulf of Mexico, I found myself a bit nervous. I worried about being on a boat for up to 12 hours a day with a group that I barely knew. Little did I know this experience would be one of the best choices I have made during my undergraduate career. I loved being on the boat all day; the work was engaging and fascinating. Although getting up at 5:45 AM to depart the dock at 7:00 AM was definitely a struggle for me, I was eager to get out of bed and explore what each day had to offer. The early mornings also became easier as the trip went on. I looked forward to the early morning boat rides to our sites in Louisiana. Every morning, my lab partners and I sat at the front of the boat and enjoyed the company of dolphins. The dolphins always seemed to strangely appreciate our presence in the channel and, almost every day, were found riding the vessel's wake. Each site that we visited offered different and exciting finds. Whether it was the number of live clams we observed, other sea life, or the diversity of shelled species, each site had a unique experience to offer. My favorite job on the boat involved sorting through shells that were collected using a box core. With the help of the crew from each marine lab, sediments and other materials on the seafloor (around 20 m deep) became accessible to us. I found multiple shark teeth in Louisiana, which was my favorite find. With each tiny live clam found, joy and excitement fueled my body, encouraging me to continue sorting through the biomineralized material. In Alabama, one of my favorite moments working offshore was the once-in-a-lifetime experience of dipping into the Gulf of Mexico. On this day, I was exhausted due to the extreme heat and humidity. After joking with Grant, one of the crew members, about taking a swim off the boat, Grant shockingly replied, “Well, why don’t you jump in!” In the corner of my eyes, I saw Paul look over in horror, shaking his head. After negotiating with Paul, and further discussing logistics with Grant, we were allowed to jump into the Gulf IF we wore life preservers and held on to a rope attached to the boat. To relieve ourselves from the heat, Marie, Mary Thomas, Ryan, and I jumped off the ship and enjoyed the refreshing waters of the Gulf. Although a bit unnerving, being unable to see land and feeling people accidentally rub against me in the sea, it was a moment I will never forget. After the “studes” jumped into the Gulf, our goal was to get Paul in the water. He agreed after various negotiations and agreements regarding how much work we needed to accomplish. Despite this, Paul never jumped in due to changing weather conditions and safety concerns regarding the waves. I am genuinely thankful for my experience and found the work engaging and scientifically significant. As a rising senior, the samples we collected offshore will be used for my senior thesis research. As a hands-on learner, I found it beneficial to physically process and understand the methods involved in collecting these specimens. Through my engagement with the sampling process, I better understand the material that I will be analyzing and working with next school year. Additionally, this experience opened up my interest in possible career paths in the future. Although I am still determining what I would like to do in the future, this trip has taught me that I could see myself working or studying marine biology, paleontology, and/or conservation. I would love to thank my fantastic advisor, Professor Paul Harnik, for suggesting the research experience. His optimism, bad taste in music, dad jokes, and humor motivated the group and encouraged a positive work environment. I also thank my fellow classmates and researchers for the endless laughs and fun brought about by working and living together. Finally, this research trip would not be possible without the help and work of the crew members at LUMCON (Louisiana) and the Dauphin Island Sea Lab (Alabama).
Post by Marie York (Colgate '26) I had few expectations going into this research experience. Frankly, I was just thrilled to conduct field research on a boat, immerse myself in the deep South for the first time, revive my programming skills, and investigate the bivalves 20 meters below our vessel. The few expectations I did have, varied a bit from my actual experiences. For starters, I had heard that it was incredibly hot in Louisiana and Alabama in the summer. However, the breeze from the moving boat and the wind made it cooler than I expected. Most days on the boat, I wore a long sleeve shirt and shorts. As for seasickness, it was a bit worse than I had expected. Before this experience, I had been on short ferry rides and small jet boats without any discomfort. Yet, on our first day on the research boat I threw up, in part because I had decided against taking seasickness medication. After that I took my sea sickness medicine for the rest of our time in Louisiana. For a few days in Alabama, I decided to skip the sea sickness medicine and was completely fine. I suspect once in Alabama my body had adjusted to the demands of being on a boat daily to do this work. Lastly, I expected to come back onshore each night sunburned and peeling. Thankfully, this was not the case. Although the UV reached 11 in Alabama, my frequent application of sunscreen, the shaded areas on the boat, and my wide-brimmed hats allowed me to protect my skin. In retrospect, I could have gone without the long sleeve shirts with UV protection, but it was reassuring to know they were an option. The picking areas on both the Acadiana and the EO Wilson were partly shaded and I often retreated to these areas when I perceived I was burning. Even though I felt prepared for the boat, there was a major aspect of the research trip that I had not anticipated. I learned a lot from the stories that my peers and the crew told. Once we had arrived at LUMCON in Louisiana, the owner of a tiny convenient store explained how Hurricane Ida had affected jobs within their community. On the Acadiana, the captain, Carl, provided us with some local history about Chauvin, shared a massive number of photos depicting alligators he had caught, and took us on an airboat tour of the surrounding wetlands. In Houma, at a cafe, our lab exchanged stories of close encounters with dangerous animals. Likewise in Alabama, on the EO Wilson, Grant from the Dauphin Island Sea Lab explained the different scuba certification licenses, such as scientific, commercial, and leisure, as well as the process that he went through to obtain his license. Moreover, Grant used little anecdotes to describe how to tie different knots commonly used on boats. Cory, a diver in training at the Sea Lab, explained his upbringing, his decision to change his career and pursue marine sciences, and his knowledge of photography. At a dinner party hosted by Grant, Kelly, another scientist at the lab, used stories to describe the usefulness of art in paleontology and to provide advice about graduate school. Physical demand of the research experience such as heat, seasickness, and sun exposure differed slightly from my expectations. In addition, the information I retained from stories by my peers and the crews we worked with were not anticipated, but very much appreciated.
Post by Mary Thomas Powell (Colgate ’26)
Before embarking on our fieldwork , I was not sure what to expect. I knew we were going to have long, hot days, but I did not anticipate the excitement of seeing so many organisms I had never seen before. While sieving and picking through samples of seafloor sediment, I came across crabs, fish, worms, starfish, shrimp, clams, snails, a shark tooth, and other small marine animals. During the rides out to the sites, I saw dolphins, sea gulls, pelicans, sea turtles, jumping fish, and crabs even larger than those we pulled up with the box core. To my untrained eye, what looked like a bucket of mud quickly turned into a treasure chest of organisms. Despite spending time on the ocean before this trip, I continued to see new organisms many of the days we were offshore. I also found the diversity among the different types of crabs and clams exciting. Although most of the clams were smaller than my finger nail (some closer to the size of the tip of a bobby pin), we did find a larger clam in Louisiana that was slightly smaller than a tennis ball. Some clams were pink, while others were white. Some had little tentacle-like protrusions when they opened up in the water, while others remained closed. Similarly, some of the crabs had polka dots, while others looked like moles. After much experimentation, I discovered that all the crabs we pulled up pinch. Although the days were long and hot, they were not as bad as I thought they would be. The length of the days and heat of the sun were eased by the excitement of seeing organisms that I did not know existed. At the end of each day I was the dirtiest and most exhausted that I have been in a while, yet I could not wait to wake up and do it all over again the next day. The excitement of discovery spans beyond the field back into the lab. Prior to this summer I found the idea of lab or computer work boring and tedious. However, after participating in the process of discovery in the field, I am looking forward to further discoveries in the lab and being able to ask and answer questions with our samples. The anticipation of what we will find in our samples mirrors the suspense of pulling up a new box core. Although the field portion of our summer has come to a close, I am excited to embark on our lab time. As Paul likes to say, “Studes, we are seeing stuff we ain’t never seen before.” Post by Ryan D’Errico (Colgate ’25)
While the focus of our fieldwork was collecting marine bivalves, I was pleasantly surprised to see numerous other types of marine animals! When the crew brought up the very first box core on the RV Acadiana in Louisiana, a crab crawled out of the mud and started walking on the deck. At that moment, I assumed it would be a rather rare occurrence to see crabs and other sea life during our time in the gulf, but throughout our weeks in the field, I came to see much more than the clams that we were there to study. Minutes after all of the box core samples were on the boat, Paul demonstrated how to sieve the clay-rich sediment. He quickly pulled something out of the mud which he told us was a polychaete worm. I hadn’t even considered that I would see worms on this trip, but they were one of the most common types of animal besides bivalves that we found in our samples. I will admit that I was a bit squeamish about touching the worms to throw them overboard when it was my first time picking through the samples, but this soon became second nature. Sieving and picking through seemingly endless samples on a constantly rocking boat was truly exhausting in a way that I had never previously experienced (even despite the fact that my watch repeatedly reminded me that my daily steps were at a record low). During moments when I was most drained, looking at different types of wildlife was the perfect break that gave me the energy to continue to work. One of the best examples of this was on one of our last days in Louisiana when I was feeling a bit nauseous and took a moment to stare at the horizon. I soon spotted a sea turtle swimming in the waves, not believing my eyes until others confirmed my observation. Other times while picking through samples we found shrimp, which we placed in plastic containers filled with water, watching them swiftly swim around before releasing them into the ocean. Another type of organism that I found to be particularly cute was the olive snails that we came across in Alabama. When these snails appeared in the samples, they appeared dead, hiding in their shells. However, after placing them in water, the little olive snails would emerge and zoom around the containers at a speed much faster than I ever imagined a snail could. In my opinion, the craziest animal we found was part of an eel, which still wriggled despite being detached from the rest of its body. Holding it in my hands was both cool and creepy as it slithered in my palms. During our 3+ hour-long journeys back from the sampling sites in Louisiana, we knew we were nearing land when seagulls and pelicans began to follow the boat, hoping we had fish to feed them. Like clockwork, a few minutes after our first bird sightings we would regain cell service. Every day as we entered Terrebonne Bay, we experienced a grand finale of dolphins that would swim in front of the bow of the boat, mere feet away from us. It was breathtaking to see them, often 4 or 5 at a time racing underneath us and breaching for air. Sometimes I even waved at the dolphins and wondered if they could see me. Now that I am back at Colgate reflecting on my last 3 weeks it is hard to believe this experience really happened, considering how different it was from anything else I have ever done. I don’t know if I will ever participate in similar fieldwork again, so I am trying to record and hold onto the memories that I made while on the Wilson and Acadiana. Members of the Paleo Lab attended the Conservation Paleobiology symposium earlier this week at University of Florida. Jane, Charlie, Juan, and Victor presented posters and Luke and Paul gave oral presentations. We learned about some fascinating research projects, including quite a number that highlighted the importance of partnerships between resource managers, conservation paleobiologists, and front-line communities. In addition, there were fieldtrips (both formal and informal), a chance to see the FL Museum of Natural History and UF's bat colony, and much more. Thanks to the organizers and the many students who attended! This past week was the Geological Society of America national conference in Denver, Colorado. It was fabulous to connect with colleagues from around the world and to share some of our current work. Cidney McMahon (Syracuse University '25) presented a poster focused on spatial and temporal variation in d15N values in mollusk shells from across the N. Gulf of Mexico; this is research that Cidney has been doing in Chris Junium's lab at SU. Paul presented a talk focused on historical changes in benthic communities in coastal Louisiana, and co-convened two oral sessions (here and here) and a poster session (here) on "Conservation Paleobiology: Lessons from the Past, Guidance for the Future" with Erin Dillon and Nussaibah Raja Schoob. Other activities included getting together with alumni from the Paleo lab (Andy Marquez, Morgan Torstenson, and Anik Regan), Paul mentoring a couple of students participating in GSA's On-to-the-Future program (details here), Charlie meeting with prospective graduate advisors, Madeline meeting with folks in AAPiG (Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders in Geosciences) from whom she has received research funding to work with Colgate prof Amy Leventer, and more broadly catching up with colleagues and collaborators and hearing a lot of interesting science! |
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