Turtles have been around for hundreds of millions of years, but it turns out most North American turtles we see today are new to the block.

Museum scientist Pat Holroyd and retired paleontologist Howard Hutchison have been exploring UCMP's vast collection of fossil turtles from Wyoming in hopes of tackling the little addressed question of how turtles and other aquatic reptiles respond to changing climates.  These fossils have managed to tell the story of several ancient takeovers back in the Eocene, about 55 million years ago.  The Eocene was when several abrupt global warming events took place - the first of which defines the start of the epoch, the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) - and semi-tropical forests extended across the northern United States.

It turns out that with warming temperatures came a case of turtle wanderlust.  While most groups of North American animals are thought to disperse via high latitude dispersal routes (like along the Bering Land Bridge or through Greenland) to the continent they call home, some reptiles, especially turtles and lizards, also opted to disperse from the south as new corridors opened up during the PETM.  The eclectic mix of creatures in North America resulting from these long treks included pond turtles and tortoises from Asia and mud turtles and river turtles from Central America.

These foreign arrivals rapidly dominated their new environments, reminiscent of classic invasive species dynamics.  And this doesn't only happen in the PETM.  Another warming event later on in the Eocene has the same signature turnover, but with a new set of immigrants, including the ancient relatives of today's tortoises.  But while the composition of North American turtles during these times shifted dramatically in favor of the migrants, there is no sign that there were any extinctions of the locals.  They merely got shunted into relatively smaller abundances.

So it is critical to understand dispersal and dispersal routes in order to understand how the composition of a fauna changes in response to climate, stresses Pat.  It'll be interesting to see how the turtles respond to the modern age of global warming.

Congratulation to UCMP's Jenna Judge who was awarded a spot in the NSF East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes (EAPSI) last spring. NSF EAPSI provides funding for a graduate student to spend a summer in an East Asian or Pacific country to conduct scientific research as well as engage in societal and cultural practices. Jenna spent her summer in Japan, studying  the evolutionary history and ecology of a group of limpets that live in a variety of habitats in the deep sea! Check out her adventures on her personal blog - the eclectic limpet.

Figure 1: Bolzano covers the floor of intersecting alpine valleys defined by stunning dolomite peaks (upper left). Check out the local GAP for the latest in dirndl fashion (lower left). Cin and Ivo inspect a big slab with Late Permian conifer branches (right).

This summer we headed to the Italian Alps to work on fossils from a newly discovered Late Permian plant locality in the incredibly scenic Bletterbach gorge. This research is part of a larger project, which tries to quantify the hits that the terrestrial ecosystem took during the end-Permian world-wide biotic crisis. Back in those days Europe and North America were connected and part of one and the same floral realm, not surprisingly called Euramerica. Euramerica was tropical and semi-arid, and its floras were characterized by conifers and seedferns. Floral remains from this area and time interval are few and far between and notoriously incomprehensive, and thus also is our understanding of the floras. The discovery in the north Italian Dolomites of a specimen (as well as taxon-rich macrofossil flora some years ago) therefore means a big leap forward. Last year a multidisciplinary team was assembled to make an inventory and study the various plant groups and reptilian ichnofossils collected at the site. We were there to study and photograph the conifer remains and sample them for preserved leaf cuticles.

Truckloads of fossiliferous material had already been collected by volunteers over the last few years and were ready to be worked on. As a result, the field part of our expedition was reduced to sampling cuticle bearing sediment layers - sitting right on top of the Butterloch waterfall in Geoparc Bletterbach. The remaining time was spent digging the museum collection.

The collection is housed in the natural history gem Naturmuseum Südtirol in Bolzano - or Bozen as the German speaking South Tyroleans call it. The museum in turn is housed in a beautiful respectfully converted historic building from the latest 1400s in the “Bozner Altstadt”. So - just like last year - we spent the hottest part of the European summer up on the attic of yet another natural history museum.

Our counterpart, curator Dr. Evelyn Kustatcher, turned out to be a fabulous cook as well as a wonderful host. That, together with daily macchiatos and apiretivos on café terraces, and the stunning natural beauty of the area made Bolzano a particularly difficult place to leave.

We will be back...

Figure 2: Sampling the cuticle-rich layer close to the waterfall (upper left). Our host Evelyn Kustatcher (red shirt) explains geo-tourist spectators what we are doing (lower left). A look into the Butterloch-Bletterbach Gorge from above (right).

Imagine what it would be like: swimming in the dark, deep underwater, in an enclosed space, “armed” with only a flashlight and a tank of air. For UCMP graduate student Joey Pakes, that is a typical day of research in the subterranean caves in Mexico. Check out her video which describes her 2010 expedition to the Yucatan Peninsula as part of her ongoing investigations into underwater cave systems. Meet some of the people and animals that make her research so special.

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San Francisco Bay. Image courtesy of USGS.

San Francisco Bay has had a dynamic and complex history over the past million years as sea level rose and fell at least four times with alternating warming periods and glaciations. About 13,000 years ago, the first group of humans arriving in the area would have walked through a valley with a river flowing nearly 48 km out toward the ocean.  The current bay formed only about 6,000 years ago.

In a recent paper published by Quaternary Research, Amy Lesen, former PhD student in UCMP and currently Chair of Biology at Dillard University in New Orleans, and Professor of the Graduate School Jere Lipps, compare the foraminifera present in the San Francisco Bay today with what was present 125,000 years ago. According to their results, not much has changed in the species that are present. However, the human introduction of a Japanese invasive species, Trochamminia hadai, in 1983 dominated the native foram species and produced more change in the microfaunal assemblage within the last 30 years than within the time it has taken to form the bay. This work sponsored by the UCMP serves as an example of how human actions can have a more severe impact within a small amount of time than the natural changes that take over several millennia.

SEM images of foraminifera a. Ammonia beccarii and b. Buliminella elegantissima. Images courtesy of Quaternary Research.

Mark Terry, a long time Teacher Advisor to UCMP, is the recipient of the 2011 Evolution Education Award, an annual award sponsored by AIBS and BSCS.

Mark is a high school Biology teacher at The Northwest School in Seattle. I first met Mark in 2000 when he sent an email inquiring about a conference that we were hosting — The National Conference on the Teaching of Evolution. The conference served to bring together members from professional societies to examine what their roles might be in supporting the teaching of evolution. Mark felt that he could gain much from such a meeting of the minds, but we probably gained more from Mark than the other way around. It became clear to us that there were a core number of teachers who were doing an excellent job of teaching evolution and that bringing them together to develop a resource for others would be an excellent contribution to the science education community. This served to initiate conversations that eventually led to a successful NSF proposal and the development of the Understanding Evolution (UE) website.

Mark officially became part of the UCMP community by serving as a Teacher Advisor to the UE project in 2002. As such, he attended meetings with other advisors, advised on the basic content of the site, contributed successful activities, and reviewed materials as they became available. Though there was a small honorarium involved, Mark gave of himself way beyond what was asked of him. Knowing how effective he was in this advisory role, it was not long before he was invited to also serve as an advisor to two of our other related projects: The Paleontology Portal and Understanding Science.

So what makes him special? First, it is that passion for teaching. I visited his school and watching him “in action” was extraordinary. He has the confidence that comes with depth of knowledge and experience, the flexibility that comes from years in the classroom, and a wonderful ability to urge his students to find out the answers on their own in a way that inspires their own confidence that they will be successful in doing so … eventually! With an avid interest in history, Mark also integrates the history of science into his teaching so that his students can see how science itself evolves with new data and new evidence, thus giving them a better understanding of how science works. And his classroom is full of skulls and other skeletal parts that support a comparative anatomy approach to studying ancestry and detailed observations through the biological illustration that he encourages.

Second, it is his passion for science. Mark literally gobbles up the paleo and evo literature, so he is on top of current research and brings his excitement of new discoveries into the classroom. That same excitement is extended into the field as he takes his students on paleo field trips to John Day Fossil Beds National Monument each year and he also serves as a field assistant to his daughter, Becca Terry, a graduate from his school and now a Ph.D. in paleontology. In fact, I have lost track of the number of Mark’s students who have gone on to receive degrees in paleo, evolutionary biology, and related fields.

But Mark contributes to the evolution education community beyond his own teaching and his work with the UE project, so there is a third component that deserves recognition. Because of his depth of knowledge, he is often asked to give talks to other teachers on the importance of teaching evolution and effective strategies for doing so. The science research community also benefits from Mark’s expertise, in particular through his work as past Chair of the Education Committee for the Society of Vertebrate Paleontology (SVP). In that role, he and I initiated what have now become an annual teacher workshop and a Round Table evolution discussion for SVP members that are incorporated into their meeting each year. This provides an opportunity to bring resources to teachers wherever the meeting is being held (e.g., 2010 Pittsburgh, 2009 Bristol, England, 2008 Cleveland, 2007 Austin) and to update the members on new resources, new strategies, and (regretfully) new challenges. Being right down the street from the Discovery Institute, Mark stays on top of activities and framing used by anti-evolutionists and keeps SVP members aware of these efforts.

Mark works in a small private school in Seattle, but his impact in evolution education is far greater and his impact on his students means that his legacy also continues through them. It has been such a joy and privilege to work with Mark. I learn from him and I am inspired by him. He is most deserving of the recognition that comes with this award.

Similar resemblance in the hyphae of living fungus Rhyzoctonia solani (left) and ancient fungus Reduviasporonites (right). (Rhizoctonia image courtesy of Lane Tredway, The American Phytopathological Society)

At the end-Permian extinction event 250 million years ago, 70% of land organisms and 95% of marine organisms went extinct.  Forests of conifer relatives were also wiped out … and their demise may have been helped by pathogenic soil fungi suggest UCMP's Cindy Looy and colleagues Henk Visscher, Utrecht University, Netherlands, and Mark Sephton, Imperial College, London.

Most researchers accept that extensive volcanism at the end of the period, resulting in major changes in global climate, was the root cause of the Permian mass extinction. Under stress from these climate changes, the conifer forests may have become more susceptible to attack from the soil-borne pathogenic fungi, speeding widespread tree mortality. If so, could our own changing climate trigger attacks by living pathogenic fungi on today's stressed forests?

Learn more about Looy et al.'s studies of fossil and living pathogenic fungi:

• Read about this research at UC Berkeley's News Center.
• Read the abstract of the paper Geology.

Attendees of UCMP short courses always go away with new understandings of the world around them and its history. Rather than presenting simple reviews of the basics, short course speakers present up-to-date overviews of topics and share both their current knowledge and the excitement of their science with the audience. However, those in attendance at last March’s Marine Mammal short course probably did not realize that they were actually getting a sneak preview of forthcoming research results!

Professor Dan Costa from UC Santa Cruz gave the audience a multi-media presentation documenting the "corridors of life" in the North Pacific Ocean and their role in supporting North Pacific food chains from plankton to whales. Professor Jim Estes, also of UC Santa Cruz, demonstrated the important role top predators play in maintaining biodiversity and ecological community structure. Their research findings presented last March have just appeared in the prestigious journals Nature and Science, respectively. UCMP's short courses always captivate and motivate, but the 2011 course also offered attendees a rare preview of coming attractions in the world of marine mammal science — PRE-publication!

Read more about Prof. Costa's research and Prof. Estes’ recent publication.

Despite a fluke June rainstorm, grad students managed to keep spirits high during two days of field work at Bodega Bay. Just as the rain began to fall, each of the graduate students — Jenny Jacobs, Misha Leong, Joey Pakes, and Rosemary Romero — welcomed 37 elementary school teachers and took them in groups of ~10 on a preliminary tour of the Bodega Marine Reserve (BMR). This would serve as an initial orientation to the buildings and the different coastal habitats that would be their focus area for the next two days.

The name of the project is CAL:BLAST — a fun acronym for a complex title — Collaborative Approach to Learning: Bridging Language And Science Teaching — and an extraordinary project focusing on professional development for 3rd, 4th, and 5th grade teachers from Oakland Unified School District (OUSD). Our goals were to increase teachers' science content knowledge as well as their interest and confidence in science, so that in turn they would increase the amount of time spent on science in their classrooms! So when we saw the predictions for rain during our stay at Bodega, we were somewhat concerned that field science might become a "tough sell," but we soon realized that this was an amazing group of teachers, and it would take more than rain to dampen their spirits!

The teachers were presented with an overarching question: what lives in the many habitats of the Bodega reserve and how do these organisms interact with one another and their environments? — clearly a question beyond the scope of a two-day field investigation, so the focus was to have the teachers become familiar with the variety of habitats and then find smaller questions that actually could be answered within that time frame and that would help to inform the larger question.

Teachers were assigned by school and geographic region to one of four "research groups" led by a graduate student and joined by at least one additional CAL:BLAST project partner from either the Lawrence Hall of Science, the Bay Area Writing Project, OUSD, or the Berkeley Natural History Museums. Each group participated in roughly the same activities, but in different habitats of the BMR.

1. Site assessments – observing habitats at different levels
Teachers used words and/or sketches to record initial habitat observations in their field notebooks. Each team then headed in a different direction, taking note of any changes that they noticed as they moved across the landscape. Once in their new location, they discussed changes noticed and then began to observe the new habitat, often making comparisons to the first.

2. Field Research: Learning field techniques – Exploring, discovering, asking questions
Depending upon the environment, teachers learned how to use a variety of tools (bug nets, beating sticks, quadrats, etc.) with which to make collections and to learn about the biodiversity of that habitat. Returning to the lab facility, teachers were asked to reflect on all that they had explored and discovered and to list a minimum of 19 questions in their notebooks that related to their field experiences. The next challenge was to determine which of these questions were testable and which they might actually be able to investigate the next morning, given the constraints of both time and resources. By the end of the afternoon, each group had identified ~ the top 10 questions of interest to them, which they presented to the whole group.

3. Evening activities
Once checked into their rooms and with dinner consumed, there was time for whole group reflection and then meetings with grad students. Teachers identified which questions would be the focus of their explorations in the morning and with whom they would be working. For those who still had some energy left, there was a night hike or time for sketching and quiet conversation, before lights out.

A summary of Day Two
Despite the early hour for a low tide, about dozen CalBlasters enjoyed some early morning tide-pooling. Then, following breakfast, it was off to the lab and a team meeting to prepare for the investigations — strategies for gathering and recording data, equipment needed, identifying study areas, etc. With rain still falling, the teachers headed to their field sites and began their investigations. Each grad student assisted their teacher teams. All data was recorded in their notebooks, and as each team completed data collection, they headed back inside for data analysis. With a short lunch break, the final task was to prepare for the upcoming symposium in which they would be sharing their findings with their colleagues.

The 2011 CAL:BLAST Bodega Biodiversity Symposium
Each research team presented their findings to the whole group, taking ~ 5-10 minutes to share their original question/hypothesis/prediction, challenges and modifications, procedures, findings, and new questions generated. They also responded to questions from their colleagues. See a PDF summary of the poster presentations.

After a celebration of watermelon and chocolate, teachers reflected on the different parts of their scientific journeys and identified strategies for incorporating the same kinds of experiences into their classrooms. A final circle of sharing took place just as the sun came out and then teachers headed back home.

Overall summary
The CAL:BLAST project team (which included the graduate students) was more than impressed by the positive energies and the depth of science that took place. Basically within less than twelve "working" hours, the teachers (novices to biological field research) arrived, became familiar with multiple habitats, learned collecting techniques, identified a testable question of interest, prepared for the investigation, gathered and analyzed their data, and presented their findings to their peers. Not bad, not bad at all!!

All images courtesy of Caleb Cheung and Jenny Jacobs

UCMP's Katherine Brakora and UCMP alums Edward Davis (now at University of Oregon) and Andrew Lee (now at Midwestern University) reviewed the evolution of mammal headgear in the latest edition of Proceedings of the Royal Society B. They examined phylogeny, development and fossil histology to establish a clearer picture of the evolution of these cranial appendages. This work has biomedical implications as well — understanding fast-growing antler bone may help with treating burns, bone cancer, osteoporosis and more.

Additional links:

• Read the press release at the University of Oregon.
• Read the full paper at Proceedings of the Royal Society B.
• Read a news story at Live Science.

Elk photo by Gerald and Buff Corsi © California Academy of Sciences