UROP Research Mentor Project Submission Portal: Submission #1289

Overall Research Project Description 66 million years ago, a massive meteorite struck the Gulf of Mexico triggering the Cretaceous-Paleogene (K-Pg) mass extinction—a cataclysmic chain of events that wiped out 75% of all animal species including the dinosaurs. Plants played a central role in this extinction: the survival and loss of different plant groups determined what resources were available to herbivores at the base of the food chain. In this way, plant extinctions shaped the severity of the event for animals, while plant survivals guided ecosystem recovery and set the evolutionary stage for the development of today’s flora. Phytoliths—microscopic silica deposits formed within plant tissues—offer an as-yet-uninvestigated record of these changes. Because of their durable composition, phytoliths can persist in sediments for millions of years. Different plant species produce distinct phytolith shapes, allowing researchers to identify which plants once inhabited an area by analyzing the phytolith contents of sediments. These properties have led to the wide application of phytoliths in fields like archaeology and anthropology, where they have shed light on the history of human plant use—but extensive use of phytoliths in more ancient investigations are still forthcoming. In this project, you will assist in extracting and examining phytolith assemblages from sediments spanning the K–Pg boundary, providing new insights into the response of flora to mass extinctions and the role of plants in shaping the identity of recovering ecosystems. To this end phytoliths will be examined from fossil plants, geological strata, and even modern plants to create a comprehensive interpretive perspective of floral turnover at the K-Pg boundary. Through assisting in this project, you will gain valuable skills in laboratory procedures and specifically phytolith analysis; an emerging field with applications in biology, geology, anthropology, and environmental science, amongst others. Please reach out to my email (nwhalen@bio.fsu.edu) with any questions or to discuss the project further.