Research Approach

The REU Site activities will take a geohistorical approach to biodiversity conservation. Our goal is to examine temporal changes in the marine ecosystems of the Carolinas in order to determine the degree and nature of societally driven environmental alteration, assess the health of the modern ecosystems, and identify possible approaches to conserving biodiversity.
In striving to manage the response of ecosystems and the species embedded within them to future anthropogenic environmental change, we must understand the state of these systems prior to the onset of human interactions with them. To accomplish our goal, we will examine the marine systems of the Carolinas from four time periods: 1) the fossil record prior to the Plio-Pleistocene (PP) extinction; 2) the fossil record of the recovery period following this regional mass extinction; 3) the Holocene prior to intensive modern anthropogenic change (archeological record); and 4) the modern environment exposed to varying degrees of anthropogenic disturbance.

The scientific goal is to understand:

1) the structure of the marine molluscan community during the Pliocene, prior to a natural, regional mass extinction event in the western Atlantic with parallels in scale and cause to the current biodiversity crisis

2) faunal response to and recovery from the Plio‐Pleistocene extinction as seen in the fossil record

3) evidence of community structure from the archeological record of shell middens prior to intensive modern anthropogenic change

4) the current composition, structure and health of the marine community at sites varying in degree of anthropogenic disturbance.

The work will document natural variability of the system, allowing natural changes in biological systems to be disentangled from those induced or magnified by human activities. Study of temporal changes in the marine community will be used to determine the degree and nature of anthropogenic alteration, assess the health of the modern community, and identify possible approaches to protecting biodiversity.