Let's Do Some Research!

I had a (very) brief meeting with my adviser yesterday, but I think I managed to figure out what I want my research topic to be for my dissertation. Now it's just a matter of fleshing it out, which means I'm going to spend lots of time in the near future sitting down and thinking about important questions and how to potentially answer them.

I picked a topic that can hopefully lead down several different research directions. My dissertation needs to be 4 chapters long: 3 should be really good, 1 can stand to be just "okay". There is no requirement that the chapters be related, but I think I would be happier with a piece of work that tells a larger story.

Those of you who have been following my research should know by now of my interest in Pleistocene non-analog faunas. By now it's been pretty well established that they have biological significance. Questions remain, however, as to why they existed. Another way of looking at it is, "Why was there so much more biodiversity then, and where did it go?" One hypothesis is that during the Pleistocene organisms were able to more finely partition ecological niches, which enabled more geographic overlap. This is a fine hypothesis that has not been tested; I intend to. How will I do that? I haven't figured that part out yet, but I'm working on it.