What Place Do Blogs Have in Science?

While I'm currently on vacation, I've also been thinking hard about a "major" upcoming post on the role of blogs in scientific discourse. Through a very fortuitous bit of serendipity, SV-POW! has a stimulating post and discussion going on about aspects of this very topic. Check it out, and look back here next week for my own contribution to the fray.

Good News for Zotero

The lawsuit by Thomson Reuters against Zotero, the free bibliographic plug-in for Firefox, has been dismissed. Read more about it here.

How Big (Dead) Mammals Respond(ed) to Global Warming: Paleontology and Our Climate Crisis

After all of the commotion over "Ida," I'm happy to point out a new, thought-provoking paper in PLoS ONE that perhaps has more relevance to modern humans than any old primate of debated affinity. This new contribution ties two rather cool issues together: charismatic megafauna and global warming. And what might they have to do with each other?

Within the scientific community, our current cycle of climate change ("global warming") is pretty well-supported by numerous lines of evidence. In light of this change, many biologists, conservationists, and policy-makers want to know exactly how this change will affect living things (humans and wildlife alike). Will animals adapt to the new conditions? Will they die out? Will different animals cope in different ways? Models, simulations, and short-term studies are all useful, but only provide one small piece of the puzzle. Short-term studies (by short-term, I mean on the scale of months, years or decades) provide useful ground-truthing for the models, but in matters of conservation and policy, they may come too late for imperiled ecosystems. It's like having your house burn down around you before you can see the smoke.

An oft-overlooked source of data comes from the fossil record. Earth's climate has changed numerous times over the millenia, and by studying previous warming or cooling episodes we may be able to understand our own times. This is where a new study, led by Larisa R. G. DeSantis in collaboration with Robert Feranec and Bruce MacFadden, comes in.

Ice Age Antics
Beginning around 2.58 million years ago, in the late Pliocene, our planet has been in an Ice Age. This ice age is characterized by cooling periods (glacial periods, in which the ice sheets advance) and warming periods (interglacial periods, in which the ice sheets retreat). For the last 10,000 years or so, we've been in an interglacial period (and our present climate change is above and beyond this). As a neat natural experiment, DeSantis and colleagues decided to look at how large animals reacted (in terms of diet, etc.) to the switch from a cool period to a warm period.

Grind Up Fossils in the Name of Science
The team focused on two sites from Florida: one from a glacial period, between 2.0 and 1.6 million years old, and another from an interglacial period, between 1.6 and 1.3 million years old. Using a little drill, the researchers sampled tooth enamel from a variety of Ice Age organisms, including horses, deer, tapirs, elephants, and other herbivorous critters that roamed Florida during that interval. And why grind up fossil specimens? It turns out that you can run the enamel powder through a spectrometer that measures the proportions of various isotopes of carbon and oxygen.

And what do these isotopes tell us? Simply put, you are what you eat. Different plants use different pathways of carbon fixation (C3 and C4 were investigated here). Animals eating lots of C4 plants (primarily "warm season grasses") have one isotopic signature for carbon, and animals eating C3 plants ("cool season grasses," trees, and shrubs) have another. Furthermore, oxygen isotopes are different for arid environments and relatively wet environments. So, by looking at oxygen and carbon isotopes in concert, you can get an idea of the relative aridity of the area as well as the diet of a given animal.

And now the modern tie-in: According to DeSantis and colleagues, many studies and models have concluded that under environmental change, animals tend to try to be pretty consistent in what they eat. In other words, if you start out at a grass-eater, you will try and stay a grass eater. So, mammals don't really do much in response to warming (or cooling). Of course, this has pretty important implications for conservation: once the grass disappears in the face of a changing climate (whatever the cause), our grass-eaters are toast.

The Results
Interestingly, it turns out that different mammals had different stories over the course of the glacial cycle. Based on the isotopic data, the types of plants changed over time, with C3 plants dominating the cooler cycle (as would be expected) and C4 plants predominating in the warm interval. And, many of the same animals are found in both the "warm" and the "cool" study sites. Although some apparently maintained similar diets (e.g., tapirs), most other animals (e.g., deer and horses) showed very different isotopic signatures over time. They were eating different foods. . .thus, these animals were quite adaptable!

What It All Means
A striking implication of the study is that some animals may not be as vulnerable to climate change as previously thought. These Ice Age species changed their ecological niches in the face of climate change. So, if large modern animals can adapt their diets relatively easily, they may be able to escape extinction too. The bottom line still is that previous assumptions of do-or-die dietary stability for large mammals are not valid in all cases. Here we have yet another cool example of how paleontology can provide important information for "real-world" problems!

Parting Thoughts
The paper, posted at PLoS ONE, covers much more than the little bit I've highlighted here. There are some interesting tidbits on changes in rainfall and ecological partitioning, among other things. It's a quick and very accessible read (weighing in at 7 PDF pages, including figures and references), and even this non-geochemist followed the text pretty easily. So, go check it out! As always, you can rate the paper or make comments at the PLoS ONE website.

The Citation
DeSantis, L., Feranec, R., & MacFadden, B. (2009). Effects of global warming on ancient mammalian communities and their environments PLoS ONE, 4 (6) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005750

PalArch Goes Open Access

Postings have been slow lately, as we enter the busy field season. I have a few comments to respond to, and a few posts in the works. For now, I wanted to point out that the PalArch family of journals has now gone completely open access. Of particular interest for readers of this blog is the PalArch Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology. Congratulations to the journal staff on making this a reality!

Re-posted from a message to the VRTPALEO listserv by Brian Beatty:

Greetings!
The PalArch Foundation is happy to announce that our website (www.palarch.nl) has been revised and updated. The PalArch Foundation supports three peer-reviewed, online journals focusing on Vertebrate Palaeontology, Archaeology of Northwest Europe, and Archaeology of Egypt/Egyptlogy.

These new revisions includes *RSS feeds*, as well as sections for *comments* with each paper, much like one has in a blog format. We hope this will encourage more open discussions of work and lead to collaborations and more rapid developments in our fields of interest.

Though we are still updating some texts and uploading the archive of book reviews, we have FINALLY managed to get the support and organization to have not only the site revised and easier to use, but also the *entire archive of papers available OPEN ACCESS*. PalArch's Journal of Vertebrate Palaeontology can be accessed here: http://www.palarch.nl/category/vertebrate_palaeontology/

More importantly, we have revised the operational plan of the journals to allow us to maximize the utility of being an online journal. That is, instead of publishing issues on a periodical basis, *papers will be published as soon as they are accepted, formatted, and finally approved*. This way we can more rapidly share new information, eliminating much of the logistical delays of publishing and retaining only the delays of critical, thorough peer review.

We hope you will consider submitting papers to PalArch, and take advantage of the open access, archive, and commenting features. PalArch is an entirely volunteer-run journal and a non-profit run by people wanting to get good science published without the financial and political hassles that can occur, and we hope you will participate.

About That Adapid. . .Or, Hype In the Digital Age

Today's PLoS ONE includes an article on a new primate from the Eocene of Germany, Darwinius masillae. Poor Darwinius has suffered heaps of abuse over her existence (we know the specimen is probably a she, based on the lack of a baculum). She died young, possibly suffocating during a belch of noxious gas from a volcanic lake. She got squashed ("lightly crushed," as her describers euphemistically say) under tons of rock, and then was rudely given a split personality upon her discovery. Each half of Darwinius was sold privately to a different collector, and eventually one half made it as far as a museum in Wyoming. This half received a little bit of creative restoration somewhere in between. The other, more intact half eventually made it to a museum in Norway. But, the fun was only beginning!

Our friend was described by a multi-national team of scientists, who teamed up with the History Channel, BBC, and other outlets to create a media blitz the likes of which the world has never seen before. Not only a peer-reviewed article, but press conferences, book deals, television programs, interviews, and much more.

Why is there such a fuss over such a little specimen (weighing in at approximately a kilogram while alive)?

First off, this is a spectacular fossil. The Messel Beds of Germany have produced truckloads of spectacular specimens with exquisite soft tissue preservation (everything from bats to birds to rodents), but primates are exceedingly, exceedingly rare. Nobody would debate the tremendous scientific value of the find. People are debating the authors' interpretation of the find.

The authors claim that Darwinius is a haplorhine primate. That is, Darwinius (and other members of its clade, the adapoid primates) is more closely related to anthropoid primates (including monkeys of all sorts, apes, humans, etc.) than to strepsirrhine primates (the group including lemurs). It's hard to believe for those of us who study dinosaurs, but this is a ridiculously contentious claim. To put it into context for you dinosaur nerds, this would be similar to someone claiming that Compsognathus is more closely related to birds than Velociraptor. Oh, the humanity!

The claim of Darwinius and other adapoids as a haplorhine is contentious for two reasons: 1) most recent, widely accepted cladistic analyses place adapoids as closer to lemurs (strepsirrhines) than to monkeys (haplorhines); and 2) there is no real cladistic analysis to support the claim made by the present paper. Instead, the authors give a list of characters that they believe to support the assignment to the haplorhine clade. Unfortunately, there is little or no discussion as to what these characters (including absence of a "toilet-claw" and "tooth comb," features found within, but not universally across, lemurs and kin) mean, including the possibility of convergence or mosaic evolution.

So, it appears that some extraordinary claims are made about Darwinius, but the supporting analyses are spartan. Given the wonderful preservation of the skeleton, it should be relatively straight-forward to code this specimen and present a cladistic hypothesis (because this will resolve all questions, right?!). Darwinius is an important fossil. The problem is that the interpretation of this specimen is highly debateable. The authors may very well be correct. . .but the burden of proof is still upon them.

As always with articles in PLoS ONE, the paper is free for everyone. Judging by the blogosphere today, there are some very strong opinions about this specimen - if you have thoughts on the little critter, please post a comment or note over at PLoS ONE!

Further Reading in the Blogosphere
Brian presents an excellent, in-depth analysis of Darwinius over at Laelaps.
Bora provides a nice list of blog coverage over at Blog Around the Clock.
Carl writes another excellent critique at The Loom.

Reference
Franzen, J., Gingerich, P., Habersetzer, J., Hurum, J., von Koenigswald, W., & Smith, B. (2009). Complete Primate Skeleton from the Middle Eocene of Messel in Germany: Morphology and Paleobiology PLoS ONE, 4 (5) DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0005723

Image at top from the original article at PLoS ONE (Franzen et al., 2009).

Book Review: Charles R. Knight, Autobiography of an Artist

Charles R. Knight was one of the most influential paleontological artists of the 20th (and latest 19th) century. His iconic paintings of Tyrannosaurus, Brontosaurus, woolly rhinos, and other prehistoric animals have influenced the direction of scientific thought, inspired movies and toys, and motivated paleontologists for decades. Every paleontologist, whether consciously or not, owes a debt of gratitude to Knight and his work.

I was particularly thrilled to receive a copy of Knight's autobiography for my birthday recently. This slim paperback, largely written by the author himself, is a fascinating glimpse into one of paleontology's vivid imaginations.

The story opens in Knight's childhood, with his earliest recollections of visits to the newly-founded American Museum of Natural History, among other memories. He details his early loss of vision in one eye, a sometimes strained relationship with his stepmother, and an early trip across the Atlantic to visit his father's family. The prose offers a window into a lost (but not necessarily simpler) time, as we see the stirrings of an interest in natural history.

The next phase of the book covers Knight's initial training in art, from sketches to stained glass. A parade of characters passes by at this and other points in the book, from the obscure, to the eccentric, to the famous. We learn about Knight's first wildlife art, and then his near-chance meeting with paleontologist Jacob Wortman. So began a paleo-art career that was to span decades.

The rest of the book largely functions as a travelogue, with occasional vignettes of paleontological characters. Most fascinating for me, as a dinosaur paleontologist, were the pages devoted to Knight's collaboration with Edward Drinker Cope. Knight describes in detail the faded glory of Cope's home at 2102 Pine Street, packed to the brim with papers and bones. Curiously, despite the tremendous influence that Cope had upon Knight's early art, the men only knew each other for a few months before Cope's death.

Perhaps because Knight wrote the book as an autobiography rather than a paleontological treatise, the reader gets only the briefest glimpse into Knight's imagination and thoughts on prehistory. The book is focused on people and places, rather than on the fossils. Some readers may be disappointed by this, but I found the format quite engaging from start to finish. Judicious editing by Jim Ottaviani helps the book flow along quickly--the manuscript was left unfinished by Knight, so I am sure it took a little bit of work to whip the text into shape.

The book is greatly augmented by a few pages of text from some notables--forewords by Ray Bradbury and Ray Harryhausen, and afterwords by a number of paleontologists from the American Museum of Natural History. Illustrations by Mark Schultz bring to life many of the distinctive characters (including what is probably the earliest description of a "crazy snake guy"). Finally, memories from Charles Knight's granddaughter, Rhoda Knight Kalt, add a unique perspective and a fitting tribute. If you're looking for an enjoyable read in the field this summer, make sure to pack this book!

Charles R. Knight, Autobiography of an Artist, by Charles R. Knight (with forewords, introductions, and afterwords by a number of other folks), 112 pages, published by G. T. Labs, Ann Arbor, Michigan.

Open Access Dissertations in Physical Anthropology

My colleague Biren Patel (who is doing some awesome research on primate locomotion and functional morphology) passed on this link to open access dissertations in physical anthropology and paleoanthropology, hosted by the Paleoanthropology Society. A number of very nice dissertations from major centers of anthropological research are posted here, some that have been published formally and others that have not. We paleontologists would do well to heed more closely the world of physical anthropology - oftentimes the "hot new techniques" presented at SVP have long been old news in the anthropology world. Furthermore, a number of our anthropological colleagues are asking the exact same questions we are! It pays to keep up on their literature.

The Paleoanthropology Society also hosts an on-line, open access journal called (oddly enough) PaleoAnthropology. Go check it out!