Marine Tetrapods Synthesis Meeting
Alta BudenThis post was guest written by Nick Pyenson, the organizer of the meeting. Nick is currently a Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Zoology, at the University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada.
Recently, EOL hosted a synthesis meeting on the evolution of marine tetrapods August 11-13, 2009, at the EOL Biodiversity Synthesis Center in the Field Museum. Among vertebrates, marine tetrapods (four limbed vertebrates) include organisms like whales, sea cows, sea turtles and penguins; although they are distantly related to one another phylogenetically, each lineage of marine tetrapod represents an independent invasion of marine environments from terrestrial ancestry.
Fossils of early whales (Basilosaurus and Rodhocetus) from the Eocene, on display at the Field Museum of Natural History (photo: N.D. Pyenson) and
Reconstruction of Waimanu, the oldest known penguin from New Zealand, on a Paleocene beach, about 58-60 million years ago. (illustraton: C. Gaskin, R. E. Fordyce, University of Otago Geology Museum).
Over the past 250 million years, no fewer than five different mammal lineages (e.g, whales, pinnipeds, sea cows) and over a dozen different reptile lineages (e.g., mosasaurs, ichthyosaurs, turtles, snakes) have independently entered marine environments at various times during the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. Attempts to understand the patterns of marine tetrapod evolution, and the processes that shape them, have unfortunately been limited to individual groups. The goal of this synthesis meeting was to fuse Mesozoic and Cenozoic perspectives on the evolution of marine tetrapods, as a way to provide a first approach at understanding broad-scale patterns and potential causes across all relevant time periods.
The meeting was organized and lead by Nick Pyenson (University of British Columbia & Smithsonian Institution), and featured 11 participants from Japan, New Zealand, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany and the U.S. Participants in the meeting reflected a varied cross-section of vertebrate paleontologists, ranging from senior faculty to graduate students. Together, the group undertook a busy three day schedule of talks, discussion, conference calls with specific EOL staff, and active work using database platforms like the Paleobiology Database (PBDB) and EOL’s LifeDesks.
The first day of the meeting consisted of some brief introductions, and remarks by Audrey Aronowsky about EOL, Biodiverisity Heritage Library (BHL), and a variety of useful platforms and programs through BioSynC. The rest of the day then consisted of 20 minute talks by each participant (sometimes in groups), followed by 10 minutes of open discussion (a rarity in typical meetings). Given the wide range of topics, taxonomic groups, and time periods, participants received a pageantry of different marine tetrapod groups (both living and extinct), with stimulating questions and discussions about the specific issues (e.g., generating comprehensive compilations of diversity for different time periods; biases of the rock record; and correlations with sea-level, tectonic and climatic changes).
The second day of the meeting started with a teleconference with EOL staff Katja Schulz, Peter Mangiafico, Eli Agbayani, and Lisa Walley. Here, participants discussed with EOL staff the process of adding extinct taxa on to EOL webpages, and generating dynamic linkages of content between EOL and the PBDB. Later in the morning, we held a teleconference with Matt Kosnik (Smithsonian Institution), who introduced the group to different aspects of the PBDB. Then, participant Mark Uhen (George Mason University and Board Member of PBDB), the group on a tour of how PBDB works, and how to enter occurence data from published fossil accounts into the PBDB, thereby generating the fundamental data needed to merge marine tetrapods across the Mesozoic and Cenozoic. It is hoped that EOL and PBDB can continue to foster an on-going partnership in the future.
On the third and last day of the meeting, the group focused on two aspects: using EOL LifeDesk as a way to build species pages for marine tetrapods (both living and extinct), as well as outreach through the Understanding Evolution and Understanding Sciences webpages, hosted by the University of California Museum of Paleontology. Lisa Walley and Katja Schulz provided an introduction to LifeDesks, and the group quickly grasped the power of the platform; see this example of Chonecetus goedertorum, an extinct toothed baleen whale, written by meeting participant Felix Marx (University of Otago). The group aims to complete about 100 species pages of marine tetrapods through the LifeDesks platform. For outreach, the group heard from David R. Lindberg (UC Berkeley and Co-PI on the Understanding Evolution and Science webpages), who provided a tour of the aforementioned pages and a preliminary discussion of developing a module on marine tetrapod evolution for the webpages.
Towards the end of the third day, the group re-assessed the entire meeting, generating some summary points about the evolution of marine tetrapods, but, more importantly, a “to do” list for further actions, which includes at least two meeting symposia and future grant applications to extramural funding agencies. Overall, this meeting provided the crucial first steps towards synthesizing our knowledge of marine tetrapod evolution, and, with the tools and approaches discussed at BioSynC, we are well-poised to tackle the rest of our objectives. We wish to thank EOL and BioSynC for funding, the latter and the Field Museum of Natural History for hosting the meeting, and especially thank BioSynC Director Mark Westneat, Audrey Aronowsky, and, of course, Darolyn Striley for helping make the meeting a successful and enjoyable time.