Fabiany Herrera
Fabiany Herrera
Address
Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute
Balboa, Ancon Republic of Panama
APO, AA 34002-0948
Telephone: 507 212-8000/8341
herreraf@si.edu
Education
B.S., Geology, Industrial University of Santander, Bucaramanga-Colombia, May 2005
Research and Teaching Experience
Visiting Research Student, National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, Washington (DC), September/October, 2004.
Undergraduate Teaching Assistantship, Paleontology. Industrial University of Santander, Bucaramanga, 2000-2001-2002.
Research Assistant, Biostratigraphy Team, Instituto Colombiano del Petróleo, 2003-2004-2005
Grants and Fellowships
Smithsonian Institution, Washington DC, Scott Wing, May 1, 2004
Youth Activity Fund, The Explorers Club Grant. New York, USA, May 19, 2004
Promoción de Jóvenes Investigadores, Corporación Geológica ARES, Bogotá Febrero 20 de 2004
Asociación Colombiana de Geólogos y Geofísicos del Petróleo ACGGP, Bogotá Abril 1 de 2004
Banco de la República grant, 2005. Bogotá Abril 14 de 2005
Research
My research focuses on paleobotany and paleoclimate; I work with fossil leaves from the Cerrejon Formation (Colombia) a paleoflora ~60 million years old to understand the evolutionary origin of South American tropical rainforest, and the climatic settings under which early rainforests appear. I am interested to know what mechanism produced the high diversity of modern South American rainforests, its phylogenetic history, and biogeography. I want to explore the response of tropical climate to past global warming and its implications for global climate, especially during the early Paleogene (65-45 million years ago). Two areas of my research are highlighted below.
The Origin of the Tropical Rainforest in South America
The origin of the tropical rainforest is one of the biggest mysteries in ecology and evolution. There is contention about the age of Neotropical diversity - does it reflect rapid recent speciation, or a long history of low extinction and/or high speciation?
The Cerrejon flora represent the oldest tropical rainforest found so far, and it is the best single chance we have for understanding the early history of the rainforest of South America. This paleoflora has similar characteristics to modern rainforest: large leaf size (suggesting precipitation ~400 cm/yr), a high proportion of entire-margined leaves (giving an estimate of ~24°C mean annual temperature), common drip-tips, many species in Leguminosae, Malvales, Arecaceae, Araceae, Zingiberales, Annonacea, Lauraceae, many large-leaved monocots, and high levels of insect herbivory on leaves. However, the diversity of the Cerrejón flora is not much higher than similar-aged floras in temperate latitudes, an unexpected and interesting result. Why? This is one of the things I hope to understand better through additional work.
Some fossil leaves from Cerrejon Flora. A. Zingiberaceae ; B. Euphorbiaceae; C. & D. Leguminosae; E. Menispermaceae; G. Sapotaceae; H. Violaceae; G. Without botanical affinity so far
Exploring Ancient Insect-Plant Interactions in the Cerrejon Flora
The high diversity of tropical South America plants is associated with high diversity and high host-specificity among herbivorous insects. There is little direct evidence on when the high diversity of herbivorous insects evolved, and if diversification was associated with host-specificity. The Cerrejon plant fossils offer some information on herbivorous insects through the amounts and types of damage present on the leaves. A preliminary assessment of the insect damage on the Cerrejon flora suggests high levels of herbivory. Some interesting questions are: Do Cerrejon plants show high levels of host-specific insect damage, as might be expected in a modern tropical flora? Were there specific modern damage types already present 60 million years ago? Were amounts of herbivory in the Paleocene similar to what is seen in tropical forests today? These questions will be particularly interesting as I develop a better understanding of floral diversity in the Paleocene Neotropics.
Some insect herbivory common on Cerrejon:
(left up) mining;
(right up) external feeding;
(left down) galling;
(right down) leaf skeletonized
A Paleotropical Rainforest and its Impact on the Global Climate
During the early Paleogene (65-40 million years ago) the Earth experienced the warmest global climate of the Cenozoic. However, climatic conditions in the tropics remain practically unknown, and existing evidence is inconsistent. Estimates of tropical sea surface temperatures suggest slightly cooler than modern conditions, something referred to as the "cool tropical paradox". We applied two paleobotany methods (leaf margin and leaf area analysis) on the Cerrejón flora to obtain the first tropical terrestrial estimates of paleotemperature and paleoprecipitation. We found that the tropical climate 60 Ma ago was similar to the modern, even though high latitudes at that time were about 20 degrees C warmer than present. This result seems to be incompatible with the most commonly cited mechanism to explain warm Paleogene climates: higher levels of carbon dioxide. High CO2 should have warmed the entire world, not just the high latitudes. Therefore, what other mechanisms could explain this paradox? Were warm early Cenozoic climates caused by other greenhouse gases such as water vapor or methane? Might feedbacks between extensive forest vegetation and climate have been responsible for equable climates?
Published Abstracts of Papers Presented at Professional Meetings
Herrera, F; Wing, S; Jaramillo, C. 2005. Warm (Not Hot) Tropics during the Late Paleocene: First Continental Evidence. AGU, Fall meeting, 5-9 December, San Francisco, California.
Bloch, J., Cadena, E., Herrera, F., Wing, S.L., Jaramillo, C. 2005. Paleocene vertebrates from the Cerrejón Formation, Guajira peninsula, Northeastern Colombia. Sixty-Fith anaual meeting, Society of Vertebrate Paleontology, Mesa Southwest Museum and Phoenix Marriott Mesa, Mesa Arizona, October 19-22.
Wing Scott L., Herrera Fabiany., Jaramillo Carlos. 2004. A Paleocene Flora from The Cerrejon Formation, Guajira Peninsula, Northeastern Colombia. VII International Organization of Paleobotany Conference, IOPC, Bariloche - Patagonia, Argentina, March 21-26.
Herrera F; Jaramillo C; 2003. Determinación de la Paleotemperatura del Paleoceno superior en zonas tropicales a partir de Megafósiles de plantas de la Formación Cerrejón. IX Congreso Colombiano de Geología, Medellín, julio 30, 31 y agosto 1.
Research Interests
Paleobotany; paleoclimatology; carbon cycle; paleoecology