Wikidata:WikiProject Echinodermata/About
Abstract for NSF Grant #2312210
editCollaborative Research: Paleozoic echinoderms as model systems for the study of evolutionary modes
Unraveling the drivers of evolution in the fossil record is critical for understanding how organisms occupy new morphologic, ecologic, and geographic spaces. This information, gleaned from the geologic past across climate perturbations, is vital for understanding and predicting how evolution will operate across the biodiversity and climate crises today. The research team will focus on groups of ancient echinoderms, marine invertebrates (e.g., sea stars) that were globally widespread through Earth?s history. This group is vastly understudied and, as such, analyses conducted on the group will provide critical insight into animal response to Earth systems perturbations. New organismal forms appear through shifts in developmental timing, called heterochrony. What is unclear is how shifts in climate, organism biogeography, and ecology affect heterochronic shifts. This research uses a holistic approach via multiple analyses, addressing changes in ecology, biogeography, and heterochrony through extreme climate events that occurred hundreds of millions of years ago, to explore aspects of organisms? evolutionary history and long-term consequences.
Database, museum, and literature data will be used jointly within phylogenetic frameworks to develop understanding of the evolutionary dynamics (i.e., changes in rates of evolution, heterochrony, biogeography, ecology) of extinct echinoderms. The chief merit of this research is the integration of multiple variables within a phylogenetic context to quantitatively understand broader patterns of evolution through abiotic change on Earth. This project will train the next generation of museum curators, educators, and researchers, and provide open-access information about echinoderms. Training will be conducted through undergraduate summer workshops on museum research techniques. Open access information about the echinoderm clades studied in this project will be published on the Digital Atlas of Ancient Life?s paleontology open access textbook. Echinoderm resources, created through this project and from previous works, will be collated on a WikiProject into one central hub for current and future echinoderm paleobiology researchers.
Project Deliverables
editAbstracts
edit- Altier, E., Sheffield, S.L., Bauer, J.E., Lam, A.R., Lamsdell, J.C., 2024. The phylogenetic paleoecology of diplopore blastozoans (Echinodermata). Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs.
- Harris, O. B., Sheffield, S.L., Lam, A.R., Bauer, J.E., Deline, B., Lamsdell, J.C., 2023. Connecting early Paleozoic echinoderm diversity dynamics to shifting climate patterns. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs.
- Harris, O.B., Sheffield, S.L., Lam, A.R., Bauer, J.E., Lamsdell, J.C., Deline, B., 2024. Redefining and contextualzing Paleozoic echinoderm diversity dynamics. North American Paleontological Convention.
- Sheffield, S.L., Limbeck M.R., Bauer, J.E., Wagner, P., Wright, A. 2023. Exploring rates of change and modes of evolution in blastozoan echinoderms. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs.
- Sheffield. S.L., 2024. Exploring echinoderm homology through ontogeny. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs.
- Sheffield, S.L., Limbeck M.R., Bauer, J.E., Wagner, P., Wright, A., 2024. Exploring rates of change and modes of evolution in blastozoan echinoderms. North American Paleontological Convention.
- Sheffield, S.L., Lam, A.R., Deline, B., Nohejlova, M., Nardin, E., Smith, N., 2024. Paleobiogeography of early Paleozoic echinoderms. Geological Society of America, Abstracts with Programs.