My PhD project is centered around the conservation paleobiology of toothed whales. Since whales play a crucial role in global marine ecosystems, it is important to be able to accurately assess the extent of anthropogenic impact ( i.e. whaling, bycatch, overfishing, pollution) on them, to implement suitable conservation policies. While there are a large variety of direct methods that can be utilized to assess the ecology of modern whales, the ecological baseline of historic whales is largely unaccounted for.
However, this information can be inferred from teeth, due to their chemical stability and high preservation potential in the fossil record. By comparing modern and subfossil teeth and thereby identifying post-mortem changes (diagenesis) in chemical composition and crystalline structure, I will establish suitable proxies for both types of material. By reconstructing the ecology of historic whales, I aim to investigate the extent of human impact on them throughout the last millennia until now.