iCCB (Integrative Climate Change Biology) is an incredibly successful program, funded primarily by the IUBS (International Union of Biological Sciences), to develop trait-based approaches that can make deep-time perspectives from paleontology applicable for understanding organisms’ responses to climate change. During its last round of funding, the IUBS tasked the iCCB with making inroads with...
After several months of learning how to ship pallets and negotiating prices, our pallet full of Natural Trap Cave Matrix has arrived from Des Moines! We now have 1300 lbs of sacks containing soil, rocks, and (most importantly) fossils from Natural Trap Cave’s latest excavations. Each of these sacks was collected with careful, fine-scale...
Last week (Nov. 7-8), Jenny participated in the National Forum on Landscape Conservation. This was a discussion amongst government, nonprofit and academic leaders in landscape ecology & conservation about how the field should progress. Jenny worked with other participants to draft short- and long-term goals for progressive integration of landscape perspectives into planning. The...
Jenny presented research on climate connectivity at the Wildlife Society conference in Albuquerque, NM. Her presentation was part of a symposium entitled “Conserving Nature’s Stages and Helping Wildlife Move Between Them” organized by Mark Anderson (The Nature Conservancy) & Paul Beier (Northern Arizona University)....
How did so many small mammal, lizard, bird, & fish bones get concentrated at Natural Trap Cave?!? Aaron has already databased >16,000 bones & teeth!!! The answer, it seems, is that packrats gather bones from the surface around the cave entrance, and then stash them in their nests along the inner rim of the...
July 8-19, Jenny & Aaron experienced their last year of fieldwork at Natural Trap Cave for the foreseeable future. Jenny spent 7 consecutive days in the cave, and was extremely productive. She analyzed and mapped the stratigraphy of the south wall of the excavation section, and sampled each strata for microfauna. She also sampled...
