Faculty Forum

Observe, ask questions, experiment, analyze, experiment again

Informal scientific communication key to sparking new discoveries

BY DR. LAURA WILSON

One of the fundamental components of scientific research is the justification of the study-clearly telling your audience why your research is important and why they should care. While sitting in a graduate-level Paleobiology course my first year as a master’s student, my professor asked the class, “why is paleontology important?”

Here, one of the most famous paleontologists in the world was challenging his students to justify not their research topic, but their careers as scientists. Why should society care about what we do? What do we contribute? That class conversation is always in the back of my mind, and in the almost 20 years since, I have been building an answer to what studying ancient life brings to the table.

Perhaps the most obvious impact of any type of research (scientific or otherwise) is to expand our knowledge. As humans, we are innately interested in the world around us. The desire to ask questions and explain observations are a delightful product of our large brain capacity and complexity. As a result, geologists and evolutionary biologists strive to understand the 4.54-billion-year history of our planet, leading to spectacular findings. In dinosaur paleontology alone, the past fifteen years have uncovered some groundbreaking discoveries.

It has been well-established for decades that birds are dinosaurs (in the same way that cats are mammals) and therefore dinosaurs evolved the ability to fly at some point in their evolutionary history. However, recent discoveries of feathered dinosaurs from China have completely revolutionized our ideas on the origin and evolution of flight. Paleontologists have found hundreds of fossils of dinosaurs that were clearly unable to fly but had feathers.

This tells us the evolution of feathers was not directly connected to the evolution of flight, as we once thought. Rather, we now think the initial function of feathers was as insulation to help regulate body temperature (like how mammals use fur) or for display to attract mates (like many bird species today).

These discoveries have also led scientists to suggest flight did not evolve just once, but possibly four times in different dinosaur groups! This shift in our understanding is even reflected in popular culture with feathered dinosaurs making an appearance in the latest Jurassic World movie.

New research has also challenged our understanding of when endothermy (“warm-bloodedness”) evolved in different animals. For decades, paleontologists have debated when dinosaurs evolved the ability to regulate their internal body temperatures. However, there is now growing evidence that endothermy first appeared before dinosaurs in an ancestor they shared with crocodiles. This means that not only were all dinosaurs possibly warm-blooded (rather than just those closely related to birds), but that the ancestors of crocodiles and alligators were warm-blooded, too. A fascinating implication is that living alligators and crocodiles, which are ectothermic (or “cold-blooded”), may have evolved from warm-blooded ancestors and then lost the ability to regulate their body temperatures-completely turning our understanding of reptile evolution on its head!

Of course, these discoveries do not mean a whole lot outside the field of paleontology if researchers cannot effectively communicate their relevance. Consequently, there is a growing emphasis on science communication-connecting the significance of new discoveries, how science works, and how to critically evaluate information to non-scientists. While the need to effectively communicate scientific ideas is important in all fields, paleontology is often seen at the forefront.

Because we have dinosaurs. I may be biased, but nothing across the sciences seems to quite catch the interest of people like extinct animals. Because of this, I often refer to paleontology as the gateway to science. Similarly, I have heard others refer to fossils as ambassadors of science. Dinosaurs and other extinct animals grab the imagination of children, tethering them to a world of inquiry and discovery. One can argue that children are born scientists. Asking questions, wanting to know why, trying to do new things, and then trying again in a different way if they fail.

lifelong learning and providing a platform to engage people in the process of science. In a world where misinformation is so easily and quickly shared, encouraging people to think critically could not be more important.

This is the foundation of science: making observations, asking questions, experimenting, analyzing the results, and experimenting again. Fascination with fossils and paleontological discoveries encourages scientific thinking in children, but also keeps them engaged as they grow older. I think the most critical role paleontology plays is encouraging

The excitement of new discoveries and using paleontology to encourage public interest in science were intuitive answers in class 20 years ago. However, the contribution of paleontology to conservation and sustainability is something I have seen more recently only through the lens of my own research. My Ph.D. advisor would often refer to the fossil record as “an experiment that has already run.” Fossils represent the results of evolutionary experiments performed under a set of specific conditions. With an increasing desire to make a broader impact through my research, this analogy strikes a chord with me.

I study marine ecosystems of the Late Cretaceous Western Interior Seaway-an ocean that stretched across North America from the Gulf of Mexico to the Arctic Ocean 66 to 100 million years ago. This was an important time in Earth’s history because global temperatures were higher than they are today. In terms of an experiment that has already run, studying changing ecosystems during a warm period in Earth’s past is essential for understanding and predicting the effects of current climate change on modern ecosystems.

For the past two years, specifically, I have been studying Protostega, a fossil sea turtle that lived in this Western Interior Seaway. While my initial questions focused on how Protostega grew, I wondered if my research could have wider implications. Much of my understanding of how these extinct animals lived comes from studying modern sea turtles. All seven living species of sea turtles are threatened (with two species critically endangered), and climate change plays a

significant part in population decline. Because of this, I am now investigating how understanding ancient sea turtle growth and evolution during a greenhouse climate can shed light on current sea turtle conservation efforts. Conservation paleobiology, using paleontology tools and knowledge to inform ecosystem preservation and biodiversity restoration is just one more way that the field of paleontology can make an impact.

Two decades later, that one class period still resonates with me. It has not only influenced my own research and outreach activities but inspired the lessons I strive to pass on to Fort Hays State students. Students are challenged to ask questions, seek answers, and distill information from a variety of sources.

Research methods and formal writing skills are still emphasized, but now there is a growing importance towards engaging students in informal science communication. Students have opportunities to participate in face-to-face outreach events and practice crafting narratives on social media platforms. And as a paleontologist, studying those experiments that have already been run, those ambassadors of science, is where I find the spark that drives me to discover, share, contribute, and pass that spark to the next generations.

BIO: Dr. Laura Wilson is the curator of paleontology at the Sternberg Museum of Natural History and a professor of geosciences at FHSU. Her research interests include studying the bone histology of marine vertebrates to uncover life history strategies of extinct animals, as well as comparisons between mid-latitude and high-latitude ecosystems along the Western Interior Seaway.