Paul A. Selden - US grants

The Treatise on Invertebrate Paleontology, founded in 1948 by an international consortium of paleontological societies, is considered to be the most authoritative compilation of data on invertebrate fossils. It holds an almost biblical significance and is to be found in every good library. The Treatise has found applications in many areas, such as understanding evolution, studying climate change, and finding fossil fuels.

In order to maximize the possible benefit from this landmark effort, there is a strong desire in the paleontological community to make this vast repository of paleontological data available in electronic form for current and future scientists and laypeople. The object of the proposed research is to facilitate knowledge discovery activities in invertebrate paleontology by providing scientists with a general framework that takes advantage of the rich information extracted from the Treatise. The first mission is to turn the Treatise data into available knowledge. The second mission is to develop computational tools for analyzing, modeling, and visualizing paleontological data in order to facilitate knowledge discovery.

The knowledgebase we propose to develop will play a central role in paleontological data management. It will facilitate paleontologists to further explore unexploited areas and to raise and answer research questions that are unsolvable under the current paradigm. Furthermore, it will provide a paradigm shift from the book-based knowledge system, which is perceived as supporting evidence of mainstream research and provides little knowledge regarding the patterns and relationships that are embedded within them, to a unified framework in which computational analysis and modeling are integrated with knowledge to derive a new era of paleontological research. Consequently, the knowledgebase will likely open transformational opportunities in scientific discovery to help understand the complexity of nature. Additionally, the website we will create will enable anyone to explore the world of fossils on the world-wide web, and to link with the University of Kansas Natural History Museum and their outreach programs for K-12 students and the general public.

The ray-finned fishes (e.g., trout, clownfish, seahorse, bass) are the most diverse group of vertebrates on Earth today and display a vast array of physical differences with regard to body shape, skull and jaw morphology, and tooth specializations. Ray-finned fishes have a long evolutionary history, and this study focuses on two extinct groups of fishes that lived during the Early Mesozoic (250-190 million years ago): the disc-shaped, deep-bodied dapediids and the torpedo-shaped, primitive redfieldiids. These two groups of fishes provide an ideal contrast (e.g., deep body versus narrow body, differences in jaws) for testing hypotheses of the impact of specialization of tooth and jaw anatomy and morphology. The researches will compare this body shape contrast with the diet, habitat preference, behavior, and niche specialization of the fish. The project will study fossils from the Early Mesozoic, a volatile time in Earth's history with global tectonic events changing the geography of the planet and shaping the diversity of organisms in different ecosystems. This research will increase our understanding of how these two groups of extinct fishes have adapted to occupy different ecological spaces and exploit different food sources.


The research will utilize state-of-the-art two- and three-dimensional digital imaging techniques, such as micro-computed tomography (CT) scanning. These tools will measure jaw and cranial anatomy and morphology as well as tooth microwear, in well-preserved redfieldiid and dapediid fossils. Using these data the investigators of this project will be able to address hypotheses about how tooth and jaw morphology relate to ecological niche space and evolutionary history. This project will provide graduate and undergraduate training in morphological and morphometric techniques, and data obtained from this study will be catalogued in online data repositories.