Living World
April 15, 7:30 PM
Mountains as Biodiversity Hotspots through time: Integrating fossils with tectonics and climate
Tara M. Smiley
Assistant Professor
Department of Ecology and Evolution
Stony Brook University
Abstract: Mountains across the globe are biodiversity hotspots for many different groups of plants and animals; however, the deep-time relationship between mountain building and biodiversity remains elusive and requires integration across disciplines in geosciences, paleontology, and biology. When and how did these hotspots form? What role do landscape and climate dynamics play in eco-evolutionary processes? Using modern and fossil records, our lab investigates how the biodiversity of mammals has been influenced by geological processes that shape mountain landscapes and generate topographic and climatic gradients. In this presentation, I will share research exploring the diversification history and faunal structure of mammals in the Basin and Range Province of western North America over the past ~25 million years, highlighting the role of tectonic extension and warming during the Miocene Climate Optimum. I will also share new collaborative work that includes researchers from Stony Brook University and the Turkana Basin Institute and extends these questions to landscape change and mammal evolution in the East African Rift of Kenya.
Bio: Tara Smiley is an assistant professor in the Ecology and Evolution Department at Stony Brook University. She is also affiliated with the Turkana Basin Institute. With a background in biology and geology, Prof. Smiley is interested in integrating environmental change with biological pattern and process today and through deep time, focusing primarily on mammalian faunas. Prof. Smiley holds a BS from the University of Washington, where she got her start in paleobiology and gained a love for field and museum-based research. She was an Environmental Peace Corps Volunteer in Madagascar and Tanzania from 2008-2010 and finished her PhD in the Department of Earth and Environmental Sciences and the Museum of Paleontology at the University of Michigan in 2016. Following her PhD, Tara was an NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in the Department of Integrative Biology at Oregon State University and the Stable Isotope Ecology Fellow at the Environmental Resilience Institute at Indiana University.