My goal as a paleoecologist is to understand the processes and factors that gave rise to the diversity of organisms and ecosystems we see in the past and the present. It is also to expand our understanding of past ecosystems, which can inform our relationships with currently existing ecosystems. My projects draw from many disciplines using a combination of methods to integrate information from both extant and extinct organisms. My research combines bioinformatic work, fieldwork, phylogenetic comparative methods, evolutionary modeling, morphometrics, and stable isotope analysis of fossil material.
Much of my research is focused on improving our knowledge of mammalian dietary evolution. I am truly fascinated by all the ways mammals obtain and process foods. Many of my projects have stemmed from my wanting to know what an extinct organism likely ate. I am also interested in understanding how intraspecific variation relates to higher-level patterns. Below you can find more details about my past and current research topics. Feel free to contact me if you would like to collaborate on a project.
CAN WE DEFINE THE DIETARY NICHE?
Diet is a multidimensional trait that can have high amounts of intraspecific and intra-individual variation. Reconstructing diet from other traits or measurements adds a layer of complexity, as reconstructions always involve a degree of error, and proxies represent the diet of an organism along different time scales. How do we rectify our understanding of diet and the numerous ways we estimate it with our desire to ask meaningful scientific questions? Currently, I am leading a network of collaborators to improve dietary-niche theory concepts for better cross-discipline synthesis. (This work was supported by NSF Award #2209402). Collaborators on this project are Michelle Lawing, Robert Guralnick, Samantha Hopkins, Kari Lintulaakso, Allen Hurlbert, and Jonathan Nations.
LINKING MAMMALIAN ECOLOGICAL TRAITS TO BIOGEOGRAPHY AND MORPHOLOGY
One of the main goals of ecology is to understand how species respond to environmental change, and specifically whole community response to resource shifts. A large proportion of mammals are omnivores (that is, they eat both plant and animal-based foods). We do not know the linkage between omnivorous dietary traits, key physical traits such as jaw shape, and the environment. This lack of knowledge also prevents paleontologists from reconstructing omnivorous diets in the fossil record, ultimately limiting more complete understanding of long-term processes underlying biological innovation. This project aims to better understand linkages between omnivorous diets and jaw/dental shape. It is also to understand how diet and shape are structured across communities and landscapes. The results of this project will help inform future estimates of how mammals and communities will respond to environmental changes (NSF Award #2209402). Collaborators on this project are Michelle Lawing and Robert Guralnick.
OMNIVORE DIET DIVERSITY, BODY MASS, AND EVOLUTION
Ecological studies often categorize all omnivorous mammals as one dietary group. However, omnivorous mammals are ecologically diverse. To increase our understanding of modern mammalian omnivores and improve paleoecological reconstructions of diet, I investigated major evolutionary trends in mammalian diets, with a special focus on transition rates between diet types. We used mammalian diet records to understand the dietary diversity within mammalian omnivores by quantifying which foods are most often eaten together. We also investigated the relationship between omnivore body mass and food consumed to better predict diets of extinct organisms. Our findings suggest that dietary specialization is highly successful but also constrained. Our results also show transitions from one diet type to another are gradual and take paths through the various stages of omnivory. See Reuter et al. 2023 for more information. Collaborators on this project were Samantha Hopkins and Samantha Price.
OREGON OLIGO-MIOCENE HERBIVORE COMMUNITY STRUCTURE
Ungulates (hooved mammals) are key primary consumers in terrestrial ecosystems. They directly affect the diversity of predators, small herbivores, and vegetation. Today, many large herbivores are threatened with extinction. My collaborators and I investigated the ecological changes in Oregon’s ungulate communities during the Oligo-Miocene (~32–5 Ma), a time when grassland expansion coincided with significant changes in North American ungulate diversity. We paired morphological data with stable carbon and oxygen isotope measurements from fossil tooth enamel. We found that the youngest fossil locality had evidence that the ungulate community became more homogeneous both morphologically and isotopically. This work underscores the value of integrating isotopic and morphological data to better understand the ecological dynamics of extinct communities. See Reuter et al. 2025 for more information.
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This work was Geological Society of America graduate research grant and the University of Oregon Department of Earth Sciences Baldwin Scholarship. Collaborators on this work were Samantha Hopkins, Scott Blumenthal, Jensen Wainwright, and Jonathan Hoffman.
OLIGO-MIOCENE MAMMALIAN COMMUNITY STRUCTURE
My aim is to understand how mammalian community structure changes in response to vegetation and climate change. To do this I am reconstructing food webs for numerous faunal assemblages, covering a 28-million-years of Oregon’s fossil history. I spent the summer of 2017 as the Geoscientists-in-the-Parks Guest Scientist at the John Day Fossil Beds National Monument collecting data and reconstructing body masses for the fauna. This is an on-going project.