ERIN LECKEY
Doctoral Candidate, Geological Sciences
I am interested in biological interactions through time, especially between plants and animals. I explore the ways in which plants and animals have used and abused each other over geological timescales, and how they have struggled for the right balance between offense and defense.
I am especially interested in looking at specialized interactions between plants and animals in modern ecosystems and seeing how far back they can be tracked in the fossil record. What are the physical and biological factors that allow these interactions to be established and to persist? How flexible are the systems? I am trying to address these questions with a series of remarkable fossil deposits that span the last 50 million years of western North American terrestrial ecosystems.
Lab Photos
Visiting the University of California Museum of Paleontology collections in summer 2009 with my favorite field assistant.
Field Photos
Collecting Clarkia fossils with Bill Rember, summer 2007.
At Clarkia, Bill and my faithful field assistant (my dad) in the pit.
Modern oaks have huge ranges. Coast Live Oaks go right down to the ocean (that's what's under the fog).
Collecting modern oak leaves from the oak woodlands of California.
The Hastings Natural History Reserve's beautiful oaks.
