DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Revealing the Floristic and Biogeographic Composition of Paleocene to Miocene Neotropical Forests

University Of Florida, Gainesville FL

Investigators

Abstract

What kinds of plants inhabited South America right after the extinction of the dinosaurs? What plants colonized the emergent islands in Central America ~40 million years ago? How did the rise of the Andes affect South American forests? These are some of the questions that have continued unanswered for many decades. Investigating well-preserved fossil fruits from Colombia, Perú, and Panama, through successive stages between ~60 and ~19 million years ago, will reveal the evolution of those ancient forests and their responses to past climatic and geographic changes. The newly recovered fossils and detailed comparative analyses with extant plants will provide new insights into the evolution of ancient forests in Latin America. This project will promote international collaboration and recruitment of other undergraduate and graduate students, developing of cyber-exhibits on the importance of fossil plants, and publishing of results in scientific and non-scientific journals. South and Central American rainforests have the highest plant diversity of any region in the world today. This phenomenal diversity cannot be fully understood without the deep-time perspective that the fossil record offers. Researchers working on the region (genetic, ecological, paleoclimatic and geological studies) will benefit from the regional and broad age spectrum of this paleobotanical study.