Tony Friscia - Academia.edu (original) (raw)

Papers by Tony Friscia

Vertebrate paleobiology and paleoanthropology series, 2023

ABSTRACTLeptospirosis is the most widespread zoonotic disease in the world, yet it is broadly und... more ABSTRACTLeptospirosis is the most widespread zoonotic disease in the world, yet it is broadly understudied in multi-host wildlife systems. Knowledge gaps regardingLeptospiracirculation in wildlife, particularly in densely populated areas, contribute to frequent misdiagnoses in humans and domestic animals. We assessedLeptospiraprevalence levels and risk factors in five target wildlife species across the greater Los Angeles region: striped skunks (Mephitis mephitis), Northern raccoons (Procyon lotor), coyotes (Canis latrans), Virginia opossums (Didelphis virginiana), and fox squirrels (Sciurus niger). We sampled more than 960 individual animals, including over 700 from target species in the greater Los Angeles region, and an additional 260 sampled opportunistically from other regions and species. In the five target species, seroprevalences ranged from 5-60% and active infection prevalences ranged from 0.8-15.2% in all except fox squirrels (0%). Patterns of serologic reactivity suggest...

Urban green spaces have the potential to function as multi-benefit spaces, for both human enjoyme... more Urban green spaces have the potential to function as multi-benefit spaces, for both human enjoyment and sustaining native wildlife populations. In our study, we trapped for small nocturnal mammals across a series of Los Angeles green spaces. Our results show that native rodents are only present in habitats that support native vegetation; in particular we highlight the native rodent biodiversity on Sage Hill, a coastal sage scrub remnant on the UCLA campus. Other urban parks that are composed of non-native grasses and non-native shrubbery yielded only invasive species of rodents, including Brown Rats (Rattus norvegicus) and House Mice (Mus musculus). Our study points to the ability of renovated green space in Los Angeles to support native fauna. In addition, our study demonstrates some of the difficulties in doing trapping studies in heavily urbanized environments.

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology, Jan 26, 2023

Evolution of Cenozoic Land Mammal Faunas and Ecosystems

NOW (New and Old Worlds) is a global database of fossil mammal occurrences, currently containing ... more NOW (New and Old Worlds) is a global database of fossil mammal occurrences, currently containing around 68,000 locality-species entries. The database spans the last 66 million years, with its primary focus on the last 23 million years. Whereas the database contains records from all continents, the main focus and coverage of the database historically has been on Eurasia. The database includes primarily, but not exclusively, terrestrial mammals. It covers a large part of the currently known mammalian fossil record, focusing on classical and actively researched fossil localities. The database is managed in collaboration with an international advisory board of experts. Rather than a static archive, it emphasizes the continuous integration of new knowledge of the community, data curation, and consistency of scientific interpretations. The database records species occurrences at localities worldwide, as well as ecological characteristics of fossil species, geological contexts of localitie...

Astronomy Education Journal

For many students, introductory college science courses are often the only opportunity in their f... more For many students, introductory college science courses are often the only opportunity in their formal higher education to be exposed to science, shaping their view of the subject, their scientific literacy, and their attitudes towards their own ability in STEM. While science writing instruction has been demonstrated to impact attitudes and outlooks of STEM majors in their coursework, this instructional strategy has yet to be explored for non-majors. In this work, we investigate student attitudes towards STEM before and after taking a writing-intensive introductory astronomy course. We find that students cite writing about science as beneficial to their learning, deepening their understanding of science topics and their perspective on science as a field and finding writing to be a ``bridge'' between STEM content and their focus on humanities in their majors. Students also report increased perceptions of their own ability and confidence in engaging with STEM across multiple m...

Despite its importance in the biostratigraphic and paleoecological framework of mammalian evoluti... more Despite its importance in the biostratigraphic and paleoecological framework of mammalian evolution in the Eocene, field work in the Uinta Basin was patchy throughout much of the 20 th century. Although various museums sent crews to collect representative samples of the fauna, no continuous, focused work was done on the sediments until the 1990's. It was then that yearly field crews based out of Washington University in St. Louis began to systematically collect mammals from the type sediments of the Uintan and Duchesnean ...

Early Miocene carnivorous mammals from Buluk, Kenya, are described and discussed. Four taxa belon... more Early Miocene carnivorous mammals from Buluk, Kenya, are described and discussed. Four taxa belonging to Hyaeno donta and four belonging to Carnivora are identified. Members of Hyaenodonta include Hyainailouros sulzeri, Hyainai louros cf. napakensis, a third taxon about the size of Leakitherium, represented only by postcranial material, and a fourth taxon represented by an edentulous jaw, in the size range of Sectisodon. Members of Carnivora include a new species of Cynelos jitu, which represents the largest species of Cynelos known. The first m2 of Cynelos macrodon is described, and the differentiation of this species from Cynelos ginsburgi and Cynelos peignei is confirmed. A third carnivoran species is represented by a mandibular fragment attributed to a viverrid similar to Mioprionodon, and a fourth taxon is represented by a feliform distal humerus, the size of that of a small cat. An ecomorphological guild structure analysis reveals that the Buluk carnivore have estimated body...

The Uinta Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah, is the type formation for the Uintan North American Land ... more The Uinta Formation, Uinta Basin, Utah, is the type formation for the Uintan North American Land Mammal Age (NALMA). Lack of a high-resolution stratigraphic section in the Uinta Formation has led to confusion regarding the nature of and position of the contact between Uinta B and Uinta C rocks. Historically, this lithostratigraphic boundary has been defined in various ways, which has also affected our understanding of the early Uintan to late Uintan faunal transition. We describe a new high-resolution stratigraphic section in the upper intervals of the Uinta Formation, in the eastern Uinta Basin of Uintah County. Since 1994, fossil collection in this region by parties from Washington University has resulted in more than 200 productive fossil vertebrate localities, with most of these localities correlated to the new stratigraphic section. The section was measured from the lowest productive fossil mammal locality to the contact between the Uinta Formation (UF) and the overlying Duches...

Journal of Vertebrate Paleontology

ABSTRACT The Paleogene–Neogene boundary is an important transitional time for the evolution of Af... more ABSTRACT The Paleogene–Neogene boundary is an important transitional time for the evolution of African fauna. Many taxa that evolved endemically in the Paleogene begin to wane in diversity, while new taxa, many of which will become exemplars of the modern African fauna, immigrate from Eurasia via newly opened terrestrial connections. The Paleogene–Neogene boundary is documented in the fossil record at Nakwai, in northern Kenya. Here we describe the mammalian carnivore fauna, which includes the earliest carnivoran records in Africa, and an interesting mix of Paleogene and Neogene hyaenodont taxa. The carnivoran fauna includes Jinomrefu lakwanza, gen. et sp. nov., the earliest barbourofelid in Africa, which has a transitional sabertooth morphology. An analysis of ecomorphological change in African mammalian carnivores across this boundary shows that hyaenodonts become more disparate in body size and more hypercarnivorous as they are displaced by invading carnivorans. This provides another test case for possible competition between carnivorans and hyaenodonts, a group that goes extinct in Africa and globally during the Neogene.

Climatic Change

The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of a two-quarter freshman course series entitle... more The goal of this study was to evaluate the impact of a two-quarter freshman course series entitled “Food: A Lens for Environment and Sustainability” (Food cluster) on the carbon footprint of food choices by college freshmen attending a large public university in California. Students enrolled in the course completed a baseline questionnaire about their diets in early fall quarter and then again at follow-up, about 6 months later at the end of the winter quarter. The control group consisted of freshmen enrolled in a different course series entitled “Evolution of the Cosmos and Life” (Cosmos cluster). The instruction in the Food cluster included lecture material on general environmental science and life cycle analyses of food, an analysis of a reading comparing the environmental footprint of various types of meats, and classroom exercises to calculate the environmental footprint of typical foods. The Cosmos cluster instruction included climate change, but no information about food. While the two groups were statistically indistinguishable at baseline, throughout the period of the study, Food cluster students decreased (a) their overall dietary carbon footprint for a 2000-kcal normalized diet by 7% (p = 0.062), (b) the beef component of their dietary carbon footprint by 19% (p = 0.024), and (c) their reported ruminant consumption by 28% (p < 0.001). At follow-up, the overall dietary footprints for Food cluster students were 4153 and 5726 g CO2-eq/day for female and male students, respectively, compared to 4943 and 6958 g CO2-eq/day for female and male Cosmos students. In the Food cluster, both genders decreased their reported ruminant meat consumption by about a serving per week, while reported ruminant meat consumption increased for males in the control group. Modest, voluntary dietary changes such as those observed in this study could play an important role in mitigating climate change. Extrapolated across the entire US population, the difference in dietary carbon footprint observed between the Food cluster and control group would amount to 33% of the reduction required for the 2013 President’s Climate Action Plan (2013).

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences

Old World monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) are a highly successful primate radiation, with more than 13... more Old World monkeys (Cercopithecoidea) are a highly successful primate radiation, with more than 130 living species and the broadest geographic range of any extant group except humans. Although cercopithecoids are highly variable in habitat use, social behavior, and diet, a signature dental feature unites all of its extant members: bilophodonty (bi: two, loph: crest, dont: tooth), or the presence of two cross-lophs on the molars. This feature offers an adaptable Bauplan that, with small changes to its individual components, permits its members to process vastly different kinds of food. Old World monkeys diverged from apes perhaps 30 million years ago (Ma) according to molecular estimates, and the molar lophs are sometimes incompletely developed in fossil species, suggesting a mosaic origin for this key adaptation. However, critical aspects of the group’s earliest evolution remain unknown because the cercopithecoid fossil record before ∼18 Ma consists of only two isolated teeth, one fr...

Henry Fairfield Osborn's law of adaptive radiation was intended to explain the early prolifer... more Henry Fairfield Osborn's law of adaptive radiation was intended to explain the early proliferation of morphological and functional variation in diversifying clades. Yet, despite much theoretical development and empirical testing, questions remain regarding the taxonomic levels at which adaptive radiation occurs, the traits involved, and its frequency across the tree of life. Here, we evaluate support for this "early…

Evolution

Simpson's “early burst” model of adaptive radiation was intended to explain the early prolife... more Simpson's “early burst” model of adaptive radiation was intended to explain the early proliferation of morphological and functional variation in diversifying clades. Yet, despite much empirical testing, questions remain regarding its frequency across the tree of life. Here, we evaluate the support for an early burst model of adaptive radiation in 14 ecomorphological traits plus body mass for the extant mammalian order Carnivora and its constituent families. We find strong support for early bursts of dental evolution, suggesting a classic Simpsonian adaptive radiation along dietary resource axes. However, the signal of this early burst is not consistently recovered in analyses at the family level, where support for a variety of different models emerges. Furthermore, we find no evidence for early burst–like dynamics in size–related traits, and Bayesian analyses of evolutionary correlations corroborate a decoupling of size and dental evolution, driven in part by dietary specialization. Our results are consistent with the perspective that trait diversification unfolds hierarchically, with early bursts restricted to traits associated with higher level niches, such as macrohabitat use or dietary strategy, and thus with the origins of higher taxa. The lack of support for early burst adaptive radiation in previous phylogenetic studies may be a consequence of focusing on low‐level niche traits (i.e., those associated with microhabitat use) in clades at shallow phylogenetic levels. A richer understanding of early burst adaptive radiation will require a renewed focus on functional traits and their evolution over higher level clades.