Edward Davis, PhD Candidate
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Department of Integrative Biology |
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Museum of Vertebrate Zoology |
I am a recent PhD in Vertebrate Paleontology from UC Berkeley, and I'm looking for a job. I'm interested in the interaction between mammal evolution and the changing physical environment. My dissertation research centered on the mammal faunas of Nevada during the tectonically and climatically active Miocene epoch (~5-23 million years ago).
I'm currently employed as a postdoctoral researcher on the California Evolutionary Hotspots project headed by Craig Moritz of the MVZ. We're working to use environmental data to identify areas of California with elevated evolutionary rates, so that evolutionary processes can be used as an additional criterion for future conservation decisions. That way, we can protect future diversity as well as current diversity.
In my dissertation research, I used the Miomap database to investigate two possibilities: 1) Global cooling during the last half of the Miocene resulted in significant evolutionary change in some families of mammals, indicating that evolutionary response to climate change is a clade-level trait. 2) Crustal expansion during the formation of the Basin and Range caused an increase in beta diversity amongst mammalian communities. To see the results from #1, you'll have to wait for that chapter of my dissertation to be published, but for #2, see my GEB paper.
I have also completed a study that tests the accuracy of the counts of specimens and individuals reported in the literature (and subsequently recorded in the Miomap database) against the actual numbers of specimens residing in museum collections. This research is necessary to test the limits of large-database paleontology. If published literature accurately captures the diversity of fossil faunas (both richness and evenness), paleoecology will be able to explore new aspects of diversity over time and space.
My initial results (in collaboration with Nick Pyenson) were presented in a poster at the 2003 GSA meetings in Seattle. A copy of this poster can be found in my abstracts section.
In addition to my research, I have been the Associate Editor for PaleoBios, the Journal of the UC Museum of Paleontology. My good friend Randall Irmis has rotated into that position.