Fossil Club Public Lecture by Sarah Augusta MacCraken
to
Calvert Marine Museum 14200 Solomons Island Road, Solomons, Maryland 20688
Sarah Augusta MacCraken
Sarah Augusta MacCraken
THE INCONSPICUOUS LIVES OF ANCIENT INSECTS: FOSSIL EVIDENCE OF INSECT HERBIVORY ON PLANTS
The evolutionary history of plants and their insect adversaries is a story told by the scars on fossil leaves. Insect damage on a single leaf not only captures one moment in time when an insect fed upon a plant, but it also reflects the millions of years of evolution leading up to that moment. These minute and unassuming fossil traces also tell us a great deal about how terrestrial ecosystems functioned during periods of biotic turnover, climate change, and extinction events. For this talk, I will discuss my research on Late Cretaceous and early Paleocene plant-insect associations, including a newly discovered lyonetiid moth mite, the oldest evidence for plant-mite associations, insect herbivory during the rise and radiation of flowering plants, and a new project examining insect herbivory throughout the Cretaceous-Paleogene mass extinction.
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