Evolution and diversity of Oligo-Miocene Mongolian rodents

The Oligocene/Miocene transition (c. 23 Ma) is a critical period in the evolutionary history of Eurasian mammals. Indeed most of Palaeogene groups of mammals disappear at the end of the Oligocene or along the course of the Early Miocene and are progressively replaced by the modern groups of mammals that compose the extant biodiversity. The climatic changes that encompass the Oligocene/Miocene transition might play a major role on the diversification and dispersal processes of modern mammal across Eurasia. The project aims at better understanding the impact of climatic and environmental changes on the diversity and evolution of rodents around the Oligocene- Miocene transition. This problem is actually two-folded because before addressing mammalian evolutionary issues, it is necessary to better characterize the evolution of terrestrial environments. To tackle these questions the study of the fossil material from the Palaeogene/Neogene sequence from the Valley of Lakes in Central Mongolia will be the base of integrated geological, palaeoecological and palaeoenvironmental studies in order to answer this problematic. The project will be carried out following three main approaches: (1) a detailed study and description of the fossil specimens associated with cladistic analyses in order to interpret the phylogenetic relationships of the Mongolian species with other Eurasian species, (2) palaeoenvironmentals reconstruction based on geological, palaeoecological and geochemical analyses, and (3) quantification of the palaeobiodiversity of Mongolian assemblages and other regions in order to follow its evolution, especially through the Oligocene/Miocene transition. This research project will carried out in the scope of the project "Impact of Oligo-Miocene climate changes on Mongolian mammals" (FWF-Project: P-23061-N19), lead by Gudrun Daxner-Höck and the teams of the Natural History Museum of Vienna. All the members of the team of the Natural History Museum of Vienna plus international collaborators gathered for the FWF-Project are specialists of various disciplines in geology, palaeontology and geochemistry giving the opportunity to develop the integrated multidisciplinary project presented above.

No additional funding sources recorded.