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Spring 2022
Predation is an important process that helps to shape community structure. The study of predation in the fossil record has often used repair scars – traces of failed predatory attacks left on prey individuals – to identify differences in predation pressure across space, time, and taxa. However,...
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Exploring the Past, Present, and Future of Predator-Prey Interactions Between Crabs and Their Gastropod Prey
DownloadSpring 2020
Interactions between predators and prey play an important role in structuring their communities and shaping evolution. However, human-induced climate change has the potential to influence both predators and prey and disrupt their interactions. The fossil record provides an enormous resource to...
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How many fossils, how to count them, and where to collect them: Examinations of the most appropriate methods for community paleoecological research
DownloadFall 2013
Paleoecology researchers have employed an array of methods for collecting, counting, and identifying fossil data; no standard protocol exists for conducting community paleoecological research. The lack of a standard protocol could lead to inaccurate conclusions. In addition, paleocommunity...
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Fall 2020
Repair scars, traces left by a failed attack on a prey item, provide direct evidence of predation in the fossil record modern systems without preservation or observation of predation events themselves. Counting repair scars and calculating repair frequencies, the number of scars in an assemblage...
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Spring 2015
This dissertation focuses on problems and progress in studying crushing predation on gastropods in the Modern and the fossil record. Although crushing predation tends to be destructive, it is possible to gather data on crushing predation from multiple angles. Chapter 2 applies an ichnotaxonomic...
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The Biology of Sclerobionts and their Hosts: Comparing Biomechanical Experiments on Brachiopod Hosts to Sclerobiont Distribution Maps
DownloadFall 2014
Sclerobionts and their host organisms provide a great deal of information for palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental studies. However, any interpretation of sclerobiont – host relationships depends on an understanding of the host’s orientation. In the past, distinction of host life and...