The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation
(Photo: Submitted)
FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — A University of Arkansas postdoctoral
student has won a Humboldt Fellowship to continue his examination of the
prehistoric environmental changes that led to the disappearance of great apes
from Europe 9 million years ago.
Gildas Merceron received the research
fellowship for his reconstruction of the habitat of a fossil ape in Central Europe.
“The Humboldt Fellowship is the most
prestigious fellowship of its kind,” said Peter Ungar, a professor of
anthropology in the Fulbright College of Arts and Sciences at the University of Arkansas.
Merceron’s research project aims to
characterize the environments and evolution of environments in Central Europe where Dryopithecus, a fossilized great
ape, evolved between 12 and 9 million years ago. Understanding which
environmental changes took place will hopefully explain why all fossil apes
disappeared from Europe 9 million years ago.
“Reconstructing the habitats and diets of
primates from the large human and apes lineage is an essential issue to better
understand apes and human evolution,” Merceron said.
Dryopithecus fossils have been found in Africa, Asia, and Europe. Dryopithecus had a semierect posture
and is generally thought to be ancestral to modern apes and man.
“Merceron’s research is able to give us a
very in-depth and important glimpse of what life was like for our ancestors
millions of years ago,” Ungar said.
To reconstruct the landscapes in which
Dryopithecus lived, Merceron will reconstruct the dietary contexts of these
other herbivorous mammals that inhabited the same areas of the fossilized great
ape.
“If we know these mammals foraged on
leaves from trees or grazed on ground vegetation, we can reconstruct the
landscape as an open savannah with grass-like plants or an evergreen forest
with many trees and bushes,” Merceron said.
Merceron reconstructs fossilized species’
feeding preferences by using dental microwear analysis, a method of analyzing
tooth shape and wear patterns in relation to food consumption. Through this
analysis, Merceron will be able to determine whether the mammals ate fruits,
grasses or tree leaves.
Merceron researches with Ungar using a
geographic information system to model the surfaces of fossilized teeth as
though they were landscapes. By studying the wear patterns on a species' teeth,
researchers can make inferences about the foods that comprised the species'
main diet.
“Using my Ph.D. background and my competence
about dental microwear analysis I acquired with Dr. Ungar, I will be able to
better characterize feeding habits of fossil antelopes, gazelles, deer and
giraffes,” Merceron said.
“We are very fortunate to have him in our
department where he is able to develop his research technique with the
unmatched technology that we have here,” Ungar said.
In the spring, Merceron will begin
researching in the department of zoology at the University of Hamburg, Germany,
for 12 months.
Currently, Merceron is concluding one
year of postdoctoral research in the Fulbright College’s department of
anthropology. He will then be a research associate in the
Laboratoire de Géobiologie, Bichronologie et Paléontologie Humaine in
Poitiers, France.
The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is
a non-profit foundation established by the Federal Republic of Germany for the
promotion of international research cooperation. Humboldt Fellowships enable
highly qualified scholars not living in Germany to spend extended periods of research in
Germany. More than 20,000 scholars from 125
countries have been sponsored to date.
To learn more about the Alexander von
Humboldt Foundation, visit http://www.humboldt-foundation.de/en/.