Fri, March 15, 2019 11:00 AM - 12:00 PM AQUATIC ECOSYSTEMS RESEARCH LABORATORY (AERL). Speaker: Dr. Camilla Speller
Assistant Professor, Anthropological Archaeology, University of British Columbia
Location: AERL Theatre (Rm. 120)
Over the last centuries, marine ecosystems have witnessed dramatic declines worldwide due to industrial overharvesting and human-induced environmental degradation. Biomolecular analysis of marine vertebrate remains recovered from archaeological and paleontological sites represent a rich resource for reconstructing past marine biodiversity and complexity over millennia. Through case studies on Atlantic gray whales and Pacific Herring, this presentation will highlight how collagen peptide mass fingerprinting (ZooMS) and ancient genomics can reveal the former distribution and ecology of extirpated populations, quantify the impacts of anthropogenic alteration on adaptive variation, and provenience sources populations of marine taxa exploited in the past. These case studies highlight the potential for biomolecular techniques not only to reconstruct marine paleoenvironments but contribute essential information for the conservation, management and restoration of modern aquatic ecosystems.