Rebecca Terry Graduate Student Department of the Geophysical Sciences 5734 S. Ellis Ave. HGS 229 Chicago, IL 60637 USA E-mail: rcterry@uchicago.edu Personal Website (includes CV and selected publications)

My research interests combine the disciplines of small mammal ecology, taphonomy, and paleontology. For my dissertation, I am working to develop ways to extract pre-settlement baseline information using small mammal skeletal deposits accumulating below long-term raptor roosts in caves in the Great Basin. To do this I am comparing modern trapping surveys, modern "pellet rain", historical trapping records, bulk surficial pellet debris, and Holocene cave deposits to assess the persistence of richness, evenness, and taxonomic composition of small mammal prey communities into the fossil record. I am also combining these analyses with radiocarbon dating of skeletal remains to estimate the temporal resolving power of single stratigraphic horizons, investigate the rates and processes by which dead cohorts are lost from the fossil record, and understand how preservation enhances or degrades the ecological information recorded in these sedimentary archives.

Faculty Advisor: Susan Kidwell