Eva Hernandez-Janer
Assessing the Impacts of Ecological Disturbances on Wild Orangutans through Stable Isotopes
My project will combine stable isotope analysis (SIA) with behavioral and nutritional data to assess how environmental variation due to fires and land use modification influences nutrition, energetics, and health in wild primates. This research will contribute to the understanding of dietary plasticity in nonhuman primates (NHPs) and assist in conservation efforts in this biodiversity hotspot. To do this, I will build on my advisor’s (Erin Vogel) eighteen-year study of nutritional ecology of wild Bornean orangutans (Pongo pygmaeus wurmbii) and add a critical component examining how recent ecological disturbances influence energetic status and health in the critically endangered wild Bornean orangutan. The ecological disturbances of focus in this study include burned areas in the forest from earlier peatland fires, and the new road clearance both in the west edge of the Tuanan Orangutan Research Station (TORS), inevitably modifying the habitat for orangutans whose home ranges overlap. To determine the impacts of these ecological disturbances on Tuanan orangutans, I will assess the isotopic vegetative changes from the highly disturbed west edge of the site to the areas with lower disturbance levels in the east. This will serve as an environmental baseline in which to compare the orangutan isotopic variation between high and low ecological disturbances.
Kyra Johnson
A Multilevel Approach to the Identification and Interpretation of Bones in the Archaeological Record
My dissertation aims to use bone as proxy for identifying fire in the archaeological record. My objective is to develop a method that can distinguish between anthropogenic and natural fires when in situ fire features are not evident. This is a three-fold approach including a) in vitro experimentation in the laboratory, b) field experiments in the Silas Little Experimental Forest (New Lisbon, NJ) and on Rutger New-Brunswick campus, and c) the study of burnt faunal remains from Pleistocene Europe with little or no evidence of fire features. First, I will prepare an experimental reference collection of burnt bones altered under different controlled conditions in the laboratory. Then, I will conduct experiments at the Silas Little Experimental Forest directly comparing experimental prescribed burns with modern campfires. These experiments will create a set of data that is more comparable to archaeological samples than those created in the laboratory. Finally, I will use the results of the laboratory and field experiments to study the archaeological record. To this end, I will sample faunal remains from Gruta da Aroeira (Torres Novas, Portugal), Cova del Gegant (Sitges, Barcelona, Spain), and Abrigo do Lagar Velho (Lapedo Valley, Portugal). These sites have evidence for burnt bones, yet they lack clear visible hearth structures. Moreover, the different taphonomic histories of the bones persevered in these sites, will help to account for bone diagenesis in my approach.
