This Americas Program award will support travel and related expenses for 8 senior and 4 junior US researchers to participate in an international multidisciplinary seminar on the paleoecology of the Cenozoic of South America, to take place in La Paz, Bolivia, May 19-22, 1999. Organizers are Drs. Bruce J. MacFadden, University of Florida, and Bruce J. Shockey, NSF International Research Fellow and Fulbright Scholar, presently assigned to the National Museum of Natural History (MNHN), La Paz. The foreign organizer is Dr. Federico Anaya Daza, Chief, Department of Paleontology, of the Museum. Participants include paleomammalogists, functional morphologists, paleobotanists and geochemists..
Through most of the Cenozoic (Age of Mammals), South America was an island continent, having an endemic faunal population that evolved in isolation from the rest of the globe. However, the rise of the Andes and the formation of the Panamanian land bridge radically changed the continent, both physically and biotically. This unique biogeographical history offers rare opportunities for evolutionary studies. The strange nature of the original South American fauna and the complex changes that occurred at that time challenge our understanding of the environmental conditions in which Neotropical life evolved. The purpose of this seminar is to summarize and assess the knowledge regarding the paleoecology and paleoclimatology of the Cenozoic; discuss what the major deficits are in our current state of knowledge; and develop new collaborative relationships to focus on areas that are deemed important for the advancement of our understanding of those complex evolutionary changes.
Bolivia is the site of several important paleontological localities, and holding the activity there will give more researchers an opportunity to become acquainted with them, as well as with the Museum's important research collections.
