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Diversity in all its forms: IPC4 as an invaluable opportunity
for STEPPE grant recipients
GSA TODAY | JANUARY 2015 Javier Luque, Dept. of Biological Sciences, University of Alberta/
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Edmonton, Alberta,
Canada, luque@ualberta.ca; Heda Agic, Dept. of Earth Sciences,
Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden, heda.agic@geo.uu.se;
Evan P. Anderson, Dept. of Geological Sciences, University of
Colorado, Boulder, Colorado, USA, evan.p.anderson@colorado
.edu; Robyn Dahl, Dept. of Earth Sciences, University of California, turn, has improved our understanding of how life on Earth has
Riverside, California, USA, robynmdahl@gmail.com; Mike Donovan,
Dept. of Geosciences, Penn State University, State College,
Pennsylvania, USA, mpd187@psu.edu; Daniel J. Field, Dept. of
Geology & Geophysics, Yale University, New Haven, Connecticut,
USA, daniel.field@yale.edu; John A. Fronimos, Dept. of Earth and
Environmental Sciences/Museum of Paleontology, University of
Michigan, Ann Arbor, Michigan, USA, jfronimo@umich.edu;
Montana Hodges, University of Montana Paleontology Center,
Missoula, Montana, USA, montana.hodges@umconnect.umt.edu;
Gary J. Motz, Center for Biological Research Collections, Indiana
University, Bloomington, Indiana, USA, garymotz@indiana.edu;
Ryan Roney, Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of
Tennessee, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, rroney1@utk.edu; Erin E.
Saupe, Dept. of Geology & Geophysics, Yale University, New
Haven, Connecticut, USA, erin.saupe@yale.edu; Sarah Sheffield,
Dept. of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of Tennessee,
Knoxville, Tennessee, USA, sarahsheffield89@gmail.com; Lydia
Tackett, Dept. of Geosciences, North Dakota State University,
Fargo, North Dakota, USA, lydia.tackett@gmail.com; Jessica N.
Tashman, Dept. of Geology, Kent State University, Kent, Ohio, USA,
jtashman@kent.edu; and Zuzanna Wawrzyniak, Dept. of
Palaeontology and Stratigraphy, University of Silesia, Katowice,
Poland, zuza.wawrzyniak@gmail.com
Earth’s biological diversity comprises ~1.7 million extant
species known to science, and there are many millions yet to be
discovered (Gewin, 2002; Mora et al., 2011). Today’s biodiversity,
however, is thought to represent only ~1% of the life that has ever
existed on our planet. Moreover, much of this life is currently in
peril from what has been called the “6th great extinction event,”
largely precipitated by the overwhelming influence humans have
had on the biosphere (Brook et al., 2008). If modern biodiversity
represents only a small fraction of the flora and fauna that once
lived, what can we learn from past diversity to understand the
future of modern biota? What processes acted to shape our
current diversity? How do living species relate to other branches
on the tree of life?
Paleontology, from the Greek palaios (old, ancient), ontos
(being, creature), and logos (thought, study), involves the study of arthropods, and early eukaryotes, and research topics from paleo-
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life through geological time. The fossil record provides a historical
ledger that sheds light on the origins of today’s biodiversity and
how organisms relate to each other via ancestor-descendant rela-
tionships. Over the last several years, new paleontological discov-
eries and technologic developments have allowed for more
efficient and innovative ways to analyze the fossil record. This, in
waxed and waned through time.
The vigor and relevance of contemporary paleontological
research were on full display at the 4th International
Palaeontological Congress (IPC4) in the city of Mendoza,
Argentina (28 Sept. to 3 Oct. 2014), where nearly 1,000 paleon-
tologists from around the world converged to celebrate paleon-
tology. The research presented at IPC4—the largest International
Palaeontological Congress to date—was highly diverse in its
topical, organismal, geographical, and temporal coverage. The
workshops, symposia, short courses, and field trips were similarly
varied, as were the conference attendees, who hailed from 50
different countries and represented many different stages of their
paleontological careers, from students to emeritus professors. In
short, diversity in all its forms was the very heart of IPC4.
We write this article as the fortunate recipients of 15 travel
grants offered by STEPPE, an NSF-supported consortium whose
purpose is to promote multidisciplinary research and education
on Earth’s deep-time sedimentary crust (see http://steppe.org/).
The funding opportunities provided by STEPPE, in collaboration
with The Geological Society of America, the Paleobotanical
Section of the Botanical Society of America, the Paleontological
Society, the Society for Sedimentary Geology, and the Society for
Vertebrate Paleontology, helped to alleviate a substantial financial
burden for many students. For many of us, IPC4 provided our
first opportunity to visit Argentina, South America, or even the
Southern Hemisphere, and without STEPPE’s aid, we would not
have experienced the new research and diverse perspectives the
conference offered, including following in the footsteps of Charles
Darwin’s travels in the Andes on the many conference field trips.
The student funding offered by the STEPPE consortium and
collaborative professional societies has greatly assisted all of us in
our nascent careers, and in this instance provided an incredibly
motivating, reassuring, and intellectually stimulating experience
that benefitted all of our futures in paleontology.
As STEPPE awardees, we are as diverse as the conference
proceedings. We study taxa as disparate as tetrapods, plants,
ecology, paleobiogeography, and biomechanics, to exceptional
preservations, functional morphology, visual systems, and