Kate Pippenger

As a third year student in the Tarhan lab, I currently study the evolutionary history of the ability of animals to bioturbate (burrow in and mix sediments). In particular, I am interested in understanding how the ability of burrowing animals to act as ecosystem engineers has changed through time, and what consequences this has had for other organisms, seafloor sediments, and marine biogeochemical cycling. To address these and other questions about animal-environment interactions through time, I apply a mixture of field and laboratory paleontological, stratigraphic, and sedimentological methods, as well as employing geochemical and database-focused analyses.

Publications:

Pippenger, K.H., Estrada, L., Jones, D.S., & Cohen, P.A. (2023). Appalachian Basin mercury enrichments during the Late Devonian Kellwasser Events and comparison to global records. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 627, 111751. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2023.111751.

Smith, J., Rillo, M.C., Kocsis, A.T., Dornelas, M., Fastovich, D., Huang, H.M., Jonkers, L., Kiessling, W., Li, Q., Liow, L.H., Margulis-Ohnuma, M., Meyers, S., Na, L., Penny, A.M., Pippenger, K.H., Renaudie, J., Saupe, E.E., Steinbauer, M.J., Sugawara, M., Tomašovỳch, A., Yasuhara, M., Finnegan, S., Hull, P.M. (2023). BioDeepTime: A database of biodiversity time series for modern and fossil assemblages. Global Ecology and Biogeography, 32(10), 1680-1689. http://doi.org/10.1111/geb.13735.

Boyer, D.L., Martinez, A.M., Evans, S.D., Cohen, P.A., Haddad, E.E., Pippenger, K.H., Love, G.D., & Droser, M.L. (2021). Living on the edge: The impact of protracted oxygen stress on life in the Late Devonian. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 566, 110226. http://doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2021.110226.