USC Paleontology and Paleoecology
University of Southern California
Department of Earth Sciences
ZHS 117
Los Angeles, CA 90089-0740
Background and Research Interests
I was born in New York City and spent my youth in the northeastern USA. I attended Haverford College outside of Philadelphia (where I majored in Geology at neighboring Bryn Mawr College), and received an M.A. from the State University of New York at Binghamton and a Ph.D. from Indiana University. My dissertation was on benthic paleoecology and sedimentology of Upper Cretaceous chalk in southwestern Arkansas. After leaving Indiana I spent a post-doctoral year with the United States Geological Survey at the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C., doing more work on Upper Cretaceous chalk throughout the Gulf Coast region of the USA. I began as assistant professor at the University of Southern California in 1979, where I have been ever since.
I am a marine paleoecologist and paleoenvironmentalist and have worked broadly on organism-sediment interactions and the ecological history of life. Upon arrival in southern California I spent much of the 1980's extending my already-formed Cretaceous interests through work on paleoecology and sedimentology of California and Baja California (Mexico) Upper Cretaceous strata. Research was also started then on the paleoecology and paleoenvironments of modern and ancient black shale deposits, spurred by the adjacent California Borderland modern anoxic basins. In addition, at this time, I began studies of the paleoecology of early metazoan life, being drawn, like many others, to the excellent lower Paleozoic outcrops in eastern California.
In the 1990's I started working on the paleoecology of the recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction, with extensive work on Lower Triassic strata throughout the western USA. This work has continued during the past decade, so that my present research emphasis concentrates on both "the beginning of the Mesozoic" as well as "the beginning of the Paleozoic". These research interests, which have typically been initiated through studies of rocks and fossils in California and adjacent states, have subsequently taken me to field work in Europe and Asia.
I was Editor of the SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology) journal PALAIOS from 1989 to 1995. I am a Fellow of the Geological Society of America and the American Association for the Advancement of Science, was President of the SEPM Pacific Section, and currently (2004-2006) am President of The Paleontological Society. During the first half of 2000 I was on sabbatical at the University of California, Los Angeles as a Senior Fellow in Bill Schopf's Center for the Study of Evolution and the Origin of Life (CSEOL). In September, 2000 I became Editor-in-Chief of the Elsevier journal Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology (PALAEO-3). For the past 15 years I have co-edited a book series for Columbia University Press in which we have published 14 books to date.
Education
B. S. (Geology), Haverford College, 1973
M. A. (Geology), State University of New York at Binghamton, 1976
Ph. D. (Geology; Zoology minor), Indiana University, Bloomington, 1978
Positions
National Research Council Post-Doctoral Research Associate with U.S. Geological Survey at Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History, Washington, D.C., 1978-1979
Research Associate, Los Angeles County Museum of Natural History, 1979-
Assistant Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Southern California,1979-1985
Associate Professor, Department of Geological Sciences, University of Southern California,1985-1991
Professor, Department of Earth Sciences, University of Southern California, 1991-
Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, University of Southern California, 2003-
Visiting Scientist, Field Museum of Natural History, Chicago, May, 1986
Selected Honors and Fellowships
Fellow, AAAS
Fellow, Geological Society of America
Paleontological Society Distinguished Lecturer, 1992-93.
Senior Fellow, Center for the Study of the Evolution and Origin of LIfe, UCLA, 2000
Other Affiliations
International Paleontological Association
Palaeontological Association
Paleontological Research Institution
Paleontological Society
Society of Systematic Biologists
International Association of Sedimentologists
SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology)
American Geophysical Union
Recent Professional Activities
Editor-in-Chief for the journal "Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology", published by Elsevier, 2000-
President-elect, Pacific Coast Section of SEPM (Society for Sedimentary Geology), 2000.
Member of Organizing Committee for 2001 North American Paleontology Convention (NAPC),to be held at UC Berkeley.
Member of National Science Foundation funding panel on "Earth Systems History", 1997-99.
Member of Editorial Board of Geology, published by Geological Society of America, 1995-
Co-editor of Columbia University Press "Critical Moments in Paleobiology and Earth History" book series, 1990- (6 volumes published to date).
Co-editor of Columbia University Press "Perspectives in Paleobiology and Earth History" book series, 1990- (4 volumes published to date).
Invited Delegate to "Paleontology in the 21st Century" planning conference, supported by the National Science Foundation, held at the Senckenberg Museum in Frankfurt, Germany on September 3-9, 1997.
Editor of SEPM Journal PALAIOS, 1989-1996.
Recent Research Seminars
For 1992-2005:
Caltech (3), USC, UCLA (2), Scripps Institute of Oceanography, UC Berkeley, UC Davis, California State University - Fullerton, Louisiana State University, University of Texas at Austin, University of Cincinnati, Northwestern University, Kansas University, Bryn Mawr College, University of Pennsylvania, University of Ottawa, ETH (Swiss Federal Institute of Technology), University of Birmingham (U.K.), Cambridge University (U.K.), University of Auckland (New Zealand), Kyushu University (Japan), University of Tokyo (3).
Ph.D. Graduates
1) Charles E. Savrda (1986), currently Professor, Auburn University.
2) Mary L. Droser (1987), currently Professor, University of California, Riverside.
3) Reese Barrick (1993), currently Professor, College of Eastern Utah.
4) Jennifer Schubert (1993), currently practicing law in Seattle, Washington.
5) Kate Whidden (1994), currently living in Calgary, Alberta.
6) Kathleen Campbell (1995), currently Senior Lecturer, University of Auckland, New Zealand.
7) Carol M. Tang (1996), currently Research Associate, California Academy of Sciences.
8) James W. Hagadorn (1998), currently Assistant Professor, Amherst College.
9) Adam Woods (1998), currently Assistant Professor, California State University - Fullerton.
10) Stephen A. Schellenberg (2000), currently Assistant Professor, San Diego State University.
11) Nicole M. Fraser (2002), currently Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of Wales (Bangor).
12) Stephen Q. Dornbos (2003), currently Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.
13) Sara B. Pruss (2004), currently Postdoctoral Research Associate, Harvard University.
14) Nicole Bonuso (2005), currently Postdoctoral Research Associate, University of California, Riverside.
15) Margaret Fraiser (2005), currently Assistant Professor, University of Wisconsin - Milwaukee.
16) Matthew Clapham (2006), currently Postdoctoral Research Associate, Queen's University
Selected Recent Peer-Reviewed Publications (From a Total of 130)
Bottjer, D.J. and M.L. Droser. 1994. The history of Phanerozoic bioturbation, p. 155-176. In Donovan, S.K. (ed.), The Palaeobiology of Trace Fossils, John Wiley and Sons.
Campbell, K.A. and D.J. Bottjer. 1995. Brachiopods and chemosymbiotic bivalves in Phanerozoic hydrothermal vent and cold seep environments. Geology, v. 23, p.321-324.
Bottjer, D.J., Campbell, K.A., Schubert, J.K. and M.L. Droser. 1995. Paleoecological models, non-uniformitarianism, and tracking the changing ecology of the past. In Bosence, D.W.J. and P.A. Allison (eds.), Marine Palaeoenvironmental Analysis from Fossils, Geological Society of London Special Publication No. 83, p. 7-26.
Bottjer, D.J., Schubert, J.K. and M.L. Droser. 1996. Comparative evolutionary palaeoecology: Assessing the changing ecology of the past. In Hart, M. (ed.), Biotic Recovery from Mass Extinction Events, Geological Society of London Special Publication No. 102, p. 1-13.
Tang, C.M. and D.J. Bottjer. 1996. Long-term faunal stasis without evolutionary coordination: Jurassic benthic marine paleocommunities, Western Interior, United States. Geology, v. 24, p. 815-818.
Droser, M.L., Bottjer, D.J. and P.M. Sheehan. 1997. Evaluating the ecological architecture of major events in the Phanerozoic history of marine invertebrate life. Geology, v. 25, p. 167-170.
Hagadorn, J.W. and D.J. Bottjer. 1997. Wrinkle structures: Microbially mediated sedimentary structures common in subtidal siliciclastic settings at the Proterozoic-Phanerozoic transition. Geology, v. 25, p. 1047-1050.
Bottjer, D.J. 1998. Phanerozoic non-actualistic paleoecology. Geobios, v. 30, p. 885-893.
Hagadorn, J.W. and D.J. Bottjer. 1999. Restriction of a late Neoproterozoic biotope: Suspect-microbial structures and trace fossils at the Vendian-Cambrian transition. Palaios, v. 14, p. 73-85.
Woods, A.D., Bottjer, D.J, Mutti, M. and J. Morrison. 1999. Lower Triassic large sea-floor carbonate cements: Their origin and a mechanism for the prolonged biotic recovery from the end-Permian mass extinction. Geology, v. 27, p. 645-648.
Droser, M.L., Bottjer, D.J., Sheehan, P.M. and G.R. McGheen, Jr. 2000. Decoupling of taxonomic and ecologic severity of Phanerozoic mass extinctions. Geology, v. 28, p. 675-678.
Bottjer, D.J., Hagadorn, J.W. and S.Q. Dornbos. 2000. The Cambrian substrate revolution. GSA Today, v. 10, p. 1-7.
Chen, J.-Y., Bottjer, D.J., Oliveri, P., Dornbos, S.Q., Gao, F., Ruffins, S., Chi, H., Li, C.-W. and Davidson, E.H. 2004. Small bilaterian fossils from 40 to 55 million years before the Cambrian. Science, v. 305, p. 218-222.
Pruss, S.B, Fraiser, M.L. and Bottjer, D.J. 2004. Proliferation of Early Triassic wrinkle structures: Implications for environmental stress following the end-Permian mass extinction. Geology, v. 32, p. 461-464.
Fraser, N.M., Bottjer, D.J. and Fischer, A.G. 2004. Dissecting "Lithiotis" bivalves: Implications for the Early Jurassic reef eclipse. Palaios, v. 19, p. 51-67.
McGhee, G.R., Jr., Sheehan, P.M., Bottjer, D.J. and Droser, M.L. 2004. Ecological ranking of Phanerozoic biodiversity crises: Ecological and taxonomic severities are decoupled. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 211, p. 289-297.
Dornbos, S.Q., Bottjer, D.J. and Chen, J.-Y. 2004. Evidence for seafloor microbial mats and associated metazoan life styles in Lower Cambrian phosphorites of southwest China. Lethaia, v. 37, p. 127-137.
Fraiser, M.L. and Bottjer, D.J. 2004. The non-actualistic Early Triassic gastropod fauna: A case study of the Lower Triassic Sinbad Limestone Member. Palaios, v. 19, p. 259-275.
Pruss, S.B. and Bottjer, D.J. 2004. Early Triassic microbial reefs of the western United States: A description and model for their deposition in the aftermath of the end-Permian mass extinction. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 211, p. 127-137.
Bottjer, D.J. 2004. The beginning of the Mesozoic: 70 million years of environmental stress and extinction, p. 99 -118. In: Taylor, P.D. (ed.). Extinctions in the History of Life. Cambridge University Press, 191 p.
Bottjer, D.J. 2005. Geobiology and the fossil record: eukaryotes, microbes, and their interactions. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, v. 219, p. 5-21.
Bottjer, D.J. 2005. The early evolution of animals. Scientific American, v. 293, p. 42-47.
Last Updated 02/07/2007