The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences awarded a $360,704 Project Grant to the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology (SDSM&T) under the Geosciences CFDA Program (47.050) to assess the paleoenvironmental and geobiological significance of carbonates from the Eocene-Oligocene boundary in the White River Group in southwestern South Dakota. The key objectives are to: 1) identify the extent of these lake deposits and understand their sedimentology and...
This $351,499 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) supports research to quantify the ecological legacy of the Terminal Pleistocene megafaunal extinction on mammal communities in the Edward's Plateau region of Texas. The research team at the University of Nebraska will characterize changes in diet, morphology, and ecological interactions of extinct and surviving mammals over the past 20,000 years through stable isotope analysis, 2D/3D...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) Division of Earth Sciences awarded a $202,138 Project Grant to the University of Washington under the Geosciences (CFDA 47.050) program. The grant funds a collaborative research project to examine the evolution of North American small mammal communities in response to landscape changes over the past 30 to 5 million years. The researchers will collect fossils and sediment samples from the U.S. Great Plains and Northwest to study how changes in habitat...
This $372,195 federal Project Grant, awarded by the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050), supports a collaborative research project to study the effects of climate change on mammalian functional diversity using a high-resolution fossil record and novel AI workflows. The key products and services to be delivered under this 3-year award, which began on November 1, 2024, include: Generating 3D datasets from micro-CT scans of mammalian fossils to characterize functional...
This federal Project Grant award, valued at $108,757, was provided by the National Science Foundation's (NSF) Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (CFDA 47.075) program to San Diego State University Foundation. The award, effective August 15, 2024 through July 31, 2026, supports a collaborative research project that investigates changes in prehistoric human foraging, mobility patterns, and population dynamics in response to environmental change during the later Pleistocene. The research...
This $419,234 Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) supports research to study the effects of climate change on mammalian functional diversity over long timescales. Key objectives include: Analyzing changes in mammal functional diversity, floral composition, and abiotic factors like temperature before, during, and after the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) climate event in the Bighorn Basin, Wyoming. This will elucidate the...
The University of South Dakota received a three-year $283,497 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation Division of Environmental Biology under the Biological Sciences federal grant program (CFDA 47.074). The grant will fund collaborative research to study the influence of temperature and resource supply on community size spectra in streams. As part of the Biological Sciences program's goal to strengthen the Nation's biological research enterprise and increase scientific understanding...
This $180,000 Project Grant from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences program (CFDA 47.050) supports postdoctoral research examining taxon-specific responses to aridity gradients in small mammals over time and across space in the northwestern Great Basin of the United States. The awardee will analyze small mammal bones deposited in caves over the past 16,000 years to test hypotheses about species sensitivity to climate drying and whether ongoing changes in climate or land use pose a...
The National Science Foundation (NSF) awarded a $798,000 Project Grant under the Biological Sciences program (CFDA 47.074) to the University of New Mexico (UNM) for a 3-year research project entitled "The New Normal: The Continuing Influence of the Late Pleistocene Megafauna Extinction on the Structure and Function of Mammal Communities." The project aims to quantify the ecological legacy of the extinction of large mammals such as mammoths, llamas, and saber-toothed cats in the...
This Project Grant award from the National Science Foundation's Geosciences Program (CFDA 47.050) supports collaborative research to study the effects of climate change on mammalian functional diversity. The $205,877 award to the Stony Brook University Research Foundation will generate 3D datasets from micro-CT scans of mammalian fossils and develop new AI tools to rapidly analyze functional traits like dental topography and limb morphology. This will characterize changes in mammalian functional...