Doctoral Dissertation Research: Avian Taphonomy and Paleoecology of Lowermost Bed II, Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania

博士论文研究：坦桑尼亚奥杜瓦伊峡谷最下床 II 的鸟类埋藏学和古生态学

• 批准号: 0723981
• 负责人: Robert Blumenschine
• 金额: $ 1万
• 依托单位: Rutgers University New Brunswick
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-06-01 至 2009-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0723981&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Avian; Taphonomy

Under the supervision of Robert Blumenschine, Co-Director of the Olduvai Landscape Paleoanthropology Project (OLAPP), Kari Alyssa Prassack will investigate modern bird bone survivorship in various lake margin habitats in northern Tanzania, and then apply this taphonomic information to the rich fossil bird bone assemblages recovered by OLAPP from 1.75 million year old deposits at Olduvai Gorge, Tanzania. The ultimate goal is to improve our understanding of the activities of early stone-tool-using hominins, whose archaeological remains commonly co-occur with fossil bird bone at Olduvai.The use of modern environments for taphonomic and paleoecological studies ensures a higher level of confidence when reconstructing past environments and lifestyles of early hominins. Since a large saline lake dominated Olduvai's ancient landscapes, several modern saline/alkaline lake basin environments in the Rift Valley of Tanzania have been selected as field sites. Ms. Prassack will observe how bird bone survivorship varies across the landscape, which habitats are most likely to preserve bird bone, and how the landscape distribution of the living bird community is reflected in post-mortem bird bone deposition. Observations of carnivores feeding on birds will address the role of predation in bird bone survivorship, while bringing much needed data on feeding ecology of many smaller-bodied carnivores (e.g. serval, genet, ratel). Controlled observations in laboratory settings will determine how water and soils from different lake basin habitats alter the appearance of bird bone (e.g. staining, cracking, microbial activity), supplementing the field data. These data will be used to understand how various physical and ecological processes (e.g. sun, water and soil chemistry, predation risk) differentially affect the survivorship of modern bird bone across the landscape. Results will be integrated into existing OLAPP models of the environments in which ancient hominins at Olduvai lived in order to provide a greater understanding of their activities across the paleolandscape. Extensive taphonomic analysis of Olduvai's other fossil vertebrates has provided important information on hominin land use. This will be the first taphonomic analysis using the fossil birds at Olduvai.The field methods being employed here combine established and novel methods in wildlife ethology, landscape ecology, and taphonomy, a direction that ensures interdisciplinary collaborations. Results of this study will have broad applicability beyond Olduvai, being relevant to numerous paleontological and archaeological localities, even those where fossil birds are highly fragmented and/or difficult to identify to higher taxonomic levels. As part of OLAPP's long term, ongoing research project in Tanzania, this project will further OLAPP's efforts to train Tanzanian nationals in field methods and data collection. As a doctoral dissertation project, the NSF award will assist in the graduate student training of Kari Prassack.

在奥杜瓦伊景观古人类学项目 (OLAPP) 联合主任 Robert Blumenschine 的监督下，Kari Alyssa Prassack 将调查坦桑尼亚北部各个湖缘栖息地的现代鸟骨幸存者，然后将这些埋藏学信息应用于丰富的鸟骨化石OLAPP 从坦桑尼亚奥杜瓦伊峡谷 175 万年前的沉积物中发现的组合。最终目标是提高我们对早期使用石器的古人类活动的了解，其考古遗迹通常与奥杜瓦伊的鸟骨化石同时出现。利用现代环境进行埋藏学和古生态学研究可确保更高的可信度当重建早期人类过去的环境和生活方式时。由于大型盐湖主导了奥杜瓦伊的古代景观，因此选择了坦桑尼亚裂谷的几个现代盐/碱性湖盆环境作为实地考察地点。普拉萨克女士将观察不同景观中鸟骨存活率的变化，哪些栖息地最有可能保存鸟骨，以及活鸟群落的景观分布如何反映在死后鸟骨沉积中。对以鸟类为食的食肉动物的观察将解决捕食在鸟骨存活中的作用，同时带来许多体型较小的食肉动物（例如薮、基因、鲫鱼）的摄食生态学所需的数据。实验室环境中的受控观察将确定来自不同湖盆栖息地的水和土壤如何改变鸟骨的外观（例如染色、破裂、微生物活动），从而补充现场数据。这些数据将用于了解各种物理和生态过程（例如阳光、水和土壤化学、捕食风险）如何对整个景观中现代鸟骨的生存产生不同的影响。结果将被整合到奥杜瓦伊古人类生活环境的现有 OLAPP 模型中，以便更好地了解他们在整个古景观中的活动。对奥杜瓦伊其他脊椎动物化石的广泛埋藏学分析提供了有关古人类土地利用的重要信息。这将是首次使用奥杜瓦伊鸟类化石进行埋藏学分析。这里采用的实地方法结合了野生动物行为学、景观生态学和埋藏学方面的现有方法和新颖方法，这是确保跨学科合作的方向。这项研究的结果将在奥杜瓦伊之外具有广泛的适用性，与许多古生物学和考古地点相关，甚至是那些化石鸟类高度破碎和/或难以识别到更高分类水平的地点。作为 OLAPP 在坦桑尼亚正在进行的长期研究项目的一部分，该项目将进一步推动 OLAPP 为坦桑尼亚国民提供现场方法和数据收集方面的培训。作为一个博士论文项目，美国国家科学基金会奖将协助卡里·普拉萨克（Kari Prassack）的研究生培养。