Assembling South Asia’s Modern Large Mammal Fauna

The fossil record of mammals in the Indian Subcontinent from the last 4 million years provides a unique opportunity to understand how ecological forces such as climate change and human activities have affected ecosystems, and in turn, resulted in the composition of the modern mammalian fauna. Using historical museum collections, and quantitative approaches from ecology and paleobiology, I uncover the hidden story of India’s fossil
mammals. This story involves giant elephants, antlered giraffes, toothy hippos, and three-toed horses. The land of the tiger as we know it today was shaped by successive dispersals of mammals from Europe and Africa driven by the monsoon, the evolution of local species, a mysterious change in the fauna, and finally, a human-caused megafaunal extinction.

Advait Jukar's research focuses on four themes: ecological change during the Anthropocene, the (paleo)ecology of herbivorous dinosaurs and mammals, turnover in Cenozoic mammal assemblages, and the taxonomy and biogeography of large mammals.

11:50 am- Snacks & Socializing
noon- Talk Begins