Happy New School Year!

Welcome back! Now that we're all starting to get into the swing of things, I'm attempting to get the Carleton Evolution and Palaeontology group back online and in business!

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at @CarletonUEvoPal.

We're still looking for group members and non-group members to do guest posts on our blog. So please email us at Evo.Paleo.Carleton@gmail.com if you're interested.

What I'm Studying: New Data on Struthiomimus altus and the Evolution of Ornithomimids in the Belly River Group

Struthiomimus altus as imagined by Irwin Christman in 1921, courtesy of  copyrightexpired.com.

My current research project is concerned with the anatomy and evolution of Struthiomimus, an ornithomimid ("ostrich dinosaur") from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta.  A previous study on ornithomimids led by Carleton student Thomas Cullen (Cullen et al. 2013) reopened some interesting questions about how different species of ornithomimids can be distinguished, and how extensive their stratigraphic ranges were.  My master's thesis supervisors, Michael Ryan and Claudia Schröder-Adams, both also supervised that study and supported further investigation into the evolutionary history of this group.

A published figure incorporating data from the ROM Struthiomimus.

Struthiomimus altus is one of the most famous ornithomimids known to the general public, the first one to be discovered in Canada (Lambe 1902), and the first one anywhere to be known from a nearly complete skeleton (Osborn 1917). However, the type material at the Canadian Museum of Nature is fragmentary, the descriptive literature on the more complete at the American Museum of Natural History is "preliminary," and some informative newer specimens are still nearly undescribed.  One such specimen is the Royal Ontario Museum Struthiomimus, discovered by Levi Sternberg in 1934, near what is now Dinosaur Provincial Park. Some features of the ROM Struthiomimus were noted by Russell (1972), and his reconstruction of a Struthiomimus skull is a composite of it and an AMNH specimen (above).  One of my goals for this project is to fully describe the ROM Struthiomimus and compare it to other specimens.  The ROM Struthiomimus deserves special attention because:
• It is one of only two specimens referred to S. altus from the Belly River Group that has a precisely documented quarry locality (Currie & Koppelhus 2005, supplementary CD).
• It is the only specimen referred to S. altus from the Belly River Group to preserve certain portions of the skull.
• It is one of only a few specimens referred to S. altus that combines the cranial, axial and appendicular elements of a single individual.
These conditions make the ROM Struthiomimus an important specimen for evaluating the diagnostic characters of S. altus, and whether it is the same species as geologically younger occurences of Struthiomimus.

When Osborn (1917) named the genus Struthiomimus, he justified its distinction from the closely related Ornithomimus partly on the basis of its lower stratigraphic occurrence, which fit the pattern he had observed in other dinosaur groups. However, subsequent discoveries enlarged the stratigraphic ranges of both taxa, and they are now known to have overlapped (Kobayashi et al. 2006, Cullen et al. 2013). The current stratigraphic range of Struthiomimus is unusually long for a dinosaur genus, and the longevity of species, or rate of species turnover within Struthiomimus, if any, is poorly understood.  The Oldman and Dinosaur Park Formations were not recognized as formally distinct until the 1990s (Eberth & Hamblin 1993), and it is therefore uncertain which formation(s) much of the S. altus material from the Belly River Group was collected from.   I'll also be examining fragmentary ornithomimid material from the geologically older Milk River, Foremost and Oldman Formations to see if I can detect any changes in the taxonomic content or diversity of Albertan ornithomimids preceding S. altus in the fossil record.


References

Cullen, T. M., Ryan, M. J., Schröder-Adams, C., Currie, P.J. and Kobayashi, Y. 2013.  An ornithomimid (Dinosauria) bonebed from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, with implications for the behavior, classification, and stratigraphy of North American ornithomimids. PLoS One 8 (3, e58853):1-9. 

Currie, P. J. and Koppelhus, E. B. (eds.) 2005. Dinosaur Provincial Park: A Spectacular Ancient Ecosystem Revealed. Indiana University Press, Bloomington. 

Eberth, D. A. and Hamblin, A. P. 1993. Tectonic, stratigraphic, and sedimentologic significance of a regional discontinuity in the upper Judith River Group (Belly River wedge) of southern Alberta, Saskatchewan, and nothern Montana. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 30: 174-200.

Kobayashi, Y., Makovicky, P., and Currie, P. 2006. Ornithomimids (Theropoda: Dinosauria) from the Late Cretaceous of Alberta, Canada.  Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology 26 (3): 86A.

Lambe, L. M. 1902. New genera and species from the Belly River Series (mid-Cretaceous). Geological Survey of Canada, Separate Report 774, Contributions to Canadian Palaeontology 2: 25-81.

Osborn, H. F. 1917. Skeletal adaptions of Ornitholestes, Struthiomimus and Tyrannosaurus. Bulletin of the American Museum of Natural History 35: 733-771.

Russell, D. A. 1972. Ostrich dinosaurs from the Late Cretaceous of western Canada. Canadian Journal of Earth Sciences 9: 375-402.

Week of March 18 Discussion

This week we are discussing:

Laflamme et al. (2012), Ecological Tiering and the Evolution of a Stem: The Oldest Stemmed Frond from the Ediacaran of Newfoundland, Canada (http://jpaleontol.geoscienceworld.org/content/86/2/193.short).

New Posts to Come

We have big plans for guest posts on research at Carleton and the Canadian Museum of Nature. Check back soon!

We're on Twitter!

Follow us on twitter @CarletonUEvoPal!!

Organizational Meeting

We're having our first meeting of the Fall semester today at 5:30 at Mike's Place.  Come on down and we can get all new and returning people acquainted over a beer. We'll also be voting on the regular meeting time for the Fall...I guess...

See you at Mike's!

Carleton Evolution and Palaeontology at CPC2012

The Canadian Paleontology Conference took place in Toronto this past weekend.  Four grad students from Carleton presented two talks and two posters, for which the following abstracts were published:

Campbell, J.A., Haggart, J.W., Druckenmiller, P.S., Schröder-Adams, C.J., Zazula, G. and Ryan, M.J. 2012.  First record of a Cretaceous plesiosaur from the Yukon Territory.  Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 20.

Cullen, T.M., Ryan, M.J., and Evans, D.C.  2012.  Taxonomy and paleoecology of a vertebrate microsite from the Foremost Formation of southern Alberta, Canada.  Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 27.

Dionne, D., Schröder-Adams, C., and Cumbaa, S.  2012.  Vertebrate fossil-rich bonebeds in the Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway: Towards a classification scheme.  Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 28-29.

McFeeters, B.  2012.  Bone "Taxon B": Re-evaluation of a supposed small theropod from the mid-Cretaceous of Morocco.  Canadian Paleontology Conference Proceedings 10: 51-52.

Interesting Recent Papers

Here are some interesting recent papers.

Leakey et al. (2012) report two contemporary species of Homo during the Pleistocene of eastern Africa.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v488/n7410/full/nature11322.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120809

Elderfield et al. (2012) report on a potential cause for the mid Pleistocene transition from 41 thousand to 100 thousand year cycles.
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/337/6095/704.short

Interesting Papers

It's been way too long since I posted about recent interesting papers. I am preparing to move to the USA for 9 months as a Fulbright Student Fellow and I have been ridiculously busy! I have a few minutes right now and better take advantage of it!

A paper from one of my University of Calgary colleagues! Longrich et al. (2012) describe a transitional snake fossil!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11227.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120726

Kohler et al. (2012) find further evidence for homeothermy in dinosaurs.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v487/n7407/full/nature11264.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120719

Pecoits et al. (2012) present evidence of 585 Ma burrows and grazing!
http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6089/1693.short

Evolution 2012 is nigh!

Tomorrow is the beginning of the Evolution 2012 conference. We will be handing out registration packets and name tags at the welcome desk, which is located in the Ridea Canal Atrium on the second floor of the Ottawa Convention Center.

You can check out the program at this link (http://www.confersense.ca/Evolution2012/program.htm).

I am also chairing the Biogeography, Bioinformatics, and Computational Biology session on Monday July 9th from 8:30 am to lunch time. I am also presenting some preliminary data for one of my dissertation chapters on geographic range sizes, climate change, and risk of extinction in mammals.

I'll be tweeting about the meeting @DaniFraser2.

See you there!

Even More Papers!

Recently there have been some especially exciting papers published. I thought I would highlight a few here. Please note this list is not exhaustive and that it is probably biased by my own interests. I am also a little bit behind! I receive way too many paper alerts and can only read so many per day.

Hugall and Stuart-Fox (2012) discuss speciation in birds via colour polymorphism. I find this especially interesting because it has implications (in my opinion) for understanding sympatric speciation. Check out he paper here!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11050.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120510

Pierce et al. (2012) discuss the mobility of the limbs of Icthyostega. This letter to nature is exciting and interesting because it has implications for the transition from water to land.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11124.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120524

Wolkovich et al. (2012) discuss the fact that climate models do not predict observed phenological (timing) changes in plants. This paper is interesting because it highlights the need for more accurate climate models. This is the subject of some of my own work.
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v485/n7399/full/nature11014.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120524

Bhullar et al. (2012) demonstrate that bird skulls are paedomorphic versions of dinosaur skulls. Evolution and development are tightly linked. This is evident in many groups including ourselves and now birds!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11146.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120531

Henry et al. (2012) use several methods including dental wear and phytolith analysis to determine the diet of Australopithecus sediba. This study might highlight the diets of our ancestors!
http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11185.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120628

More to come soon!

Very Cool Recent Papers

Here are some new papers that I found interesting, surprising or both!

Kinoshita et al. (2012) identify the important of propriospinal neurons for hand dexterity in primates!

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11206.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120621

Arrigo et al. (2012) describe massive phytoplankton blooms under the sea ice.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6087/1408.short

Prufer et al. (2012) have sequenced the bonobo genome, finding they are as closely related to use as chimps.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/vaop/ncurrent/full/nature11128.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120614

Hooper et al. (2012) study the effect of biodiversity loss on continuing climate change.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7401/full/nature11118.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120607

Barnosky et al. (2012) discuss whether ecosystems are at a tipping point and about to make a dramatic shift in state.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v486/n7401/full/nature11018.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120607

O'Connell and Hofmann (2012) find that vertebrate brain regions responsible for behavior are remarkably conserved.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6085/1154.short

Shoval et al. (2012) study trade offs between different phenotypes in nature.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/336/6085/1157.short

Evolution 2012 Update

I have returned from the Big Apple where I was collecting copious amounts of data for my dissertation! I plan to write a couple of posts this week on Evolution 2012 and on some recent papers in Nature, Science, and elsewhere.

For now, you can view the completed talk and event schedule for Evolution 2012 at the following link:

http://www.confersense.ca/Evolution2012/program.htm

I will be presenting on some of my dissertation work on July 9 at 8:45 am (ouch!). Hope to see you there.

Evolution 2012 Pubs

As mentioned in a previous post, I am part of the Evoluton 2012 blogging team. I will be posting links to the new blog posts here as often as I can.

Are you attending Evolution 2012? Are you looking for a place to have a drink? Here are some of my suggestions (http://evolution2012ottawa.com/wordpress/?p=222).

Interested in visiting the Canadian Museum of Nature during your visit to Ottawa? Here is some information posted by a fellow blogger (http://evolution2012ottawa.com/wordpress/?p=154).

I hope to see you there!

Interesting Recent Papers

It's been a while since I posted new and interesting papers here. So here ya go!

Xu et al. 2012. A gigantic feathered dinosaur from the Lower Cretaceous of China. Nature 48: 92–95.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7392/full/nature10906.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120405 

M'Gonigle et al. 2012. Sexual selection enables long-term coexistence despite ecological equivalence Nature 484: 506–509.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7395/full/nature10971.html

Evolution 2012 for Vegetarians

If you're attending the Evolution 2012 conference in Ottawa and you're a vegetarian, don't despair! I have written a post recommending some of my favourites (http://evolution2012ottawa.com/wordpress/?p=136).

If you're also interested in seeing the sites around the city see this post (http://evolution2012ottawa.com/wordpress/?p=116) highlighting Ottawa's many museums.

Evolution 2012 Blog

As many of you know, the Evolution 2012 meeting is being held in Ottawa this July. I'm currently part of the blogging team. We're working hard to create a variety of posts for people coming from outside the city. If you're planning to attend the meeting, the blog is an excellent resource!

You can read posts by myself and my colleagues here (http://evolution2012ottawa.com/wordpress/).

I hope to see you at the meeting!

Canadian Paleontology Conference

The Canadian Paleontology Conference (CPC) will be held at the University of Toronto this coming September.

You can find relevant information here:
http://www.cpc2012.org/

You can download and print the circular here:
http://www.cpc2012.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/04/CPC-2012-TO-1st-circular.pdf

Interesting Recent Papers

Here are some interesting new papers that came across my inbox.

Jochen et al. 2012. Carbon isotope constraints on the deglacial CO2 rise from ice cores. Science DOI: 10.1126/science.1217161.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/early/2012/03/28/science.1217161.abstract

Haile-Selassie et al. 2012. A new hominin foot from Ethiopia shows multiple Pliocene bipedal adaptations. Nature 483: 565–569.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v483/n7391/full/nature10922.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120329

Rule et al. 2012. The aftermath of megafaunal extinction: ecosystem transformation in Pleistocene Australia. Science 335: 1483-1486.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6075/1483.short

Stewart and Stringer. 2012. Human evolution out of Africa: the role of refugia and climate change. Science Vol. 335: 1317-1321.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/335/6074/1317.short

Peters and Gaines. 2012. Formation of the ‘Great Unconformity’ as a trigger for the Cambrian explosion. Nature 484: 363–366.

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v484/n7394/full/nature10969.html?WT.ec_id=NATURE-20120419

End of Term Party!

We will be having our End of Term party this coming Friday. We will convene at O'Brien's on Heron (1145 Heron Road) around 8 pm. Don't forget to practice your singing!

I'm willing to buy a few cheap snacks but I can't buy much! If we all chip in 5 dollars we can probably get a nice spread of nachos etc. So let's raid those change jars!