NSFGEO-NERC: VERTEBRATE FUNCTIONAL TRAITS AS INDICATORS OF ECOSYSTEM FUNCTION THROUGH DEEP AND SHALLOW TIME-Jason Head -NSF-NERC (NSF is the lead)
Lead Research Organisation:
UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Department Name: Zoology
Abstract
Animals interact with their environments via specific sets of traits. The structure of their teeth allows animals to process food efficiently. The orientation of their feet allows animals to move across the landscape to attain food and avoid predation. These trait-environment relationships have co-evolved over long timespans. However, habitat alteration and modern climate change has the potential to rapidly disrupt the balance. Animal communities that possess a full suite of traits that are functionally matched to environmental conditions maintain ecosystem processes. However, habitat loss, climate change, and extinction fundamentally alter the fit of traits to their environments. Changes in the composition and diversity of ecometric traits can signal the imminent collapse of an ecosystem toward the approach of ecological tipping points. An important challenge in modern ecology is to identify which traits are necessary to maintain ecosystem functions. However, because trait-environment interactions manifest over long timescales, inferring ecosystem degradation requires the historical perspective uniquely provided by the fossil record.
We will analyze trait-environment relationships across Africa and through time over the past 7.5 million years. In doing so, we will disentangle the effects of hominine evolution and environmental change on ecosystem function and determine the point at which the critical loss of traits results in ecosystem collapse. We will do this with a novel multi-trait and multi-taxonomic approach to capture feeding, locomotor, and physiological functional aspects of terrestrial vertebrate ecosystems. Our efforts will produce an extensive database of hard-to-gather functional traits from African museum specimens that will be publicly reposited. This proposal will provide project personnel international collaborative experiences in the translation of research findings into learning modules, museum exhibits, and conservation planning through partnering with the Conservation Paleobiology in Africa Program of the International Union of Biological Sciences. We will develop learning modules for training East African students in collections-based research. We will create museum exhibits highlighting and explaining trait-environment relationships in Kenya and the UK, reaching nearly 1 million visitors per year. To translate our research into actionable conservation initiatives, we will rely on the co-production of knowledge by involving conservation groups at all stages of research planning. We will also hold a conservation action workshop at the end to discuss outcomes and direct applications.
We will analyze trait-environment relationships across Africa and through time over the past 7.5 million years. In doing so, we will disentangle the effects of hominine evolution and environmental change on ecosystem function and determine the point at which the critical loss of traits results in ecosystem collapse. We will do this with a novel multi-trait and multi-taxonomic approach to capture feeding, locomotor, and physiological functional aspects of terrestrial vertebrate ecosystems. Our efforts will produce an extensive database of hard-to-gather functional traits from African museum specimens that will be publicly reposited. This proposal will provide project personnel international collaborative experiences in the translation of research findings into learning modules, museum exhibits, and conservation planning through partnering with the Conservation Paleobiology in Africa Program of the International Union of Biological Sciences. We will develop learning modules for training East African students in collections-based research. We will create museum exhibits highlighting and explaining trait-environment relationships in Kenya and the UK, reaching nearly 1 million visitors per year. To translate our research into actionable conservation initiatives, we will rely on the co-production of knowledge by involving conservation groups at all stages of research planning. We will also hold a conservation action workshop at the end to discuss outcomes and direct applications.
People |
ORCID iD |
Jason James Head (Principal Investigator) |
Publications

Bobe R
(2023)
The first Miocene fossils from coastal woodlands in the southern East African Rift.
in iScience

Lauer D
(2023)
Pleistocene Disruption of Trait-Environment Relationships Informs the Future Conservation of African Megafauna
in Bulletin of the Florida Museum of Natural History

Lauer DA
(2023)
Disruption of trait-environment relationships in African megafauna occurred in the middle Pleistocene.
in Nature communications

McGuire JL
(2023)
The past as a lens for biodiversity conservation on a dynamically changing planet.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


Parker AK
(2023)
The utility of body size as a functional trait to link the past and present in a diverse reptile clade.
in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America


Siciliano-Martina L
(2024)
Ecometrics demonstrates that the functional dental traits of carnivoran communities are filtered by climate
in Ecology and Evolution
Description | Results of research thus far have included developing new ecometrics (functional trait-environmental relationships) from modern animals to reconstruct past environments in Eastern Africa and using past ecometric relationships to assess ecological health in living animal communities (e.g., Parker et al., 2023, PNAS), and to examine the history of trait-environmental fit in African hoofed mammals through the last seven million years (Lauer et al., 2023, Nature Comms.). This study demonstrates a good fit between traits and environmental until the emergence of humans on the landscape, suggesting that humans have impacted animal habitats much earlier than traditionally thought. |
Exploitation Route | The continued development of ecometrics as a tool to assess ecosystem health will increasingly be useful to conservation biology forecasting and decision-making. The PIs of this project will be meeting with Eastern African conservation leaders in the last year of the project to discuss how to implement methods and results to maximise remaining vertebrate biodiversity. |
Sectors | Environment Culture Heritage Museums and Collections |
Description | Delegation to assess National Museums of Kenya research and collection facilities for renovation. |
Geographic Reach | Africa |
Policy Influence Type | Contribution to a national consultation/review |
Description | Squamate diversity through climate change in equatorial Africa partnership |
Organisation | National Museums of Kenya |
Country | Kenya |
Sector | Public |
PI Contribution | Conceived and developed research collaboration to examine changes in the diversity of reptiles through time in eastern Africa based on the fossil records of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Targeted funding sources. |
Collaborator Contribution | Helped to conceive and develop research collaboration to examine changes in the diversity of reptiles through time in eastern Africa based on the fossil records of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Confirmed access to museum collections in eastern Africa and Berlin. |
Impact | No outputs yet- funding applications are being written. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Squamate diversity through climate change in equatorial Africa partnership |
Organisation | Natural History Museum, Berlin |
Country | Germany |
Sector | Private |
PI Contribution | Conceived and developed research collaboration to examine changes in the diversity of reptiles through time in eastern Africa based on the fossil records of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Targeted funding sources. |
Collaborator Contribution | Helped to conceive and develop research collaboration to examine changes in the diversity of reptiles through time in eastern Africa based on the fossil records of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Confirmed access to museum collections in eastern Africa and Berlin. |
Impact | No outputs yet- funding applications are being written. |
Start Year | 2023 |
Description | Squamate diversity through climate change in equatorial Africa partnership |
Organisation | Texas A&M University |
Country | United States |
Sector | Academic/University |
PI Contribution | Conceived and developed research collaboration to examine changes in the diversity of reptiles through time in eastern Africa based on the fossil records of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Targeted funding sources. |
Collaborator Contribution | Helped to conceive and develop research collaboration to examine changes in the diversity of reptiles through time in eastern Africa based on the fossil records of Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, and Tanzania. Confirmed access to museum collections in eastern Africa and Berlin. |
Impact | No outputs yet- funding applications are being written. |
Start Year | 2023 |