{"id":94014,"date":"2026-02-04T08:31:40","date_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=94014"},"modified":"2026-02-04T08:31:41","modified_gmt":"2026-02-04T14:31:41","slug":"science-cafe-explores-how-great-plains-landscape-affected-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/?p=94014","title":{"rendered":"Science Cafe explores how Great Plains landscape affected life"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p><strong>By RORY MOORE<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><em>Tiger Media Network<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fort Hays State University\u2019s Science and Mathematics Education Institute hosted the Fossils, Museums, and 66 Million Years Science Cafe at the Venue on Monday. The event featured Assistant Professor of Geosciences, Curator of Paleontology and Geology Amanda Peng. In her lecture, Peng discussed the influence of landscapes on biodiversity during the Cenozoic era, particularly the Great Plains and Rocky Mountains.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow aligncenter\" data-effect=\"slide\"><div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_container swiper-container\"><ul class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_swiper-wrapper swiper-wrapper\"><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><figure><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"790\" height=\"422\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-94018\" data-id=\"94018\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4.jpg?resize=790%2C422\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C547&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=370%2C198&amp;ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C80&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C410&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C820&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1094&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-1-of-4-scaled.jpg?w=2370 2370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_caption gallery-caption\">The FHSU Science and Mathematics Education Institute hosts the &#8220;Fossils, Museums, and 66 Million Years&#8221; Science Cafe inside the Venue.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><figure><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"790\" height=\"364\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-94017\" data-id=\"94017\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4.jpg?resize=790%2C364\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C472&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=370%2C170&amp;ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C69&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C354&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C708&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C944&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-2-of-4-scaled.jpg?w=2370 2370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_caption gallery-caption\">Amanda Peng, Assistant Professor of Geosciences and Geology, educates attendees on the natural and climatic changes of the North America&#8217;s landscape and impact on fauna. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><figure><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"790\" height=\"561\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-94016\" data-id=\"94016\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4.jpg?resize=790%2C561\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=1024%2C727&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=366%2C260&amp;ssl=1 366w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=150%2C106&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=768%2C545&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=1536%2C1090&amp;ssl=1 1536w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=2048%2C1454&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?resize=700%2C496&amp;ssl=1 700w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/ScienceCafe-3-of-4-scaled.jpg?w=2370 2370w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_caption gallery-caption\">Talking about the movement of the North American Continental Plate.<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><li class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_slide swiper-slide\"><figure><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"790\" height=\"484\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_image wp-image-94019\" data-id=\"94019\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?resize=790%2C484\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?resize=1024%2C627&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?resize=370%2C227&amp;ssl=1 370w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?resize=150%2C92&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?resize=768%2C470&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?w=1055&amp;ssl=1 1055w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 790px) 100vw, 790px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_caption gallery-caption\">Speaking of the environmental influence on animals based on size. <\/figcaption><\/figure><\/li><\/ul><a class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_button-prev swiper-button-prev swiper-button-white\" role=\"button\"><\/a><a class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_button-next swiper-button-next swiper-button-white\" role=\"button\"><\/a><a aria-label=\"Pause Slideshow\" class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_button-pause\" role=\"button\"><\/a><div class=\"wp-block-jetpack-slideshow_pagination swiper-pagination swiper-pagination-white\"><\/div><\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>The majority of the lecture focused on how the shifting of the American Continental Plate affected the evolution of biodiversity during the Cenozoic Era after the Dinosaurs went extinct.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThe Rocky Mountains were built beginning around 80 million years ago by tectonic processes,\u201d Peng said. \u201cThat mountain building created complex topography compared to the Great Plains. This complex landscape is the result of tectonic activity over many millions of years, and those geologic processes created environments that life then had to adapt to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peng contrasted the rugged, mountainous West with the flatter plains, noting that each landscape produced different ecosystems and animal communities.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThese landscapes are characterized by being very homogeneous with flat topography,\u201d Peng said. \u201cA lot of these areas today are covered in grassland ecosystems &#8211; the kinds of landscapes we\u2019re used to seeing here in Kansas. The Rocky Mountains are geologically, ecologically, and biologically different since the animals you\u2019d find in the mountains differ from what you\u2019d find out here on the Plains. This complex topography in the Rocky Mountains is the result of tectonic activity over many millions of years, and those geologic processes created the landscape that life then had to adapt to.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The animals that Peng primarily focused on when detailing this result were rodents due to their abundance in the landscape and fossil record.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cThey\u2019re susceptible to barriers to migration,\u201d she said. \u201cThey can\u2019t just traverse mountains or obstacles easily, so they stay put and evolve in place as the landscape changes around them. They respond rapidly to environmental changes, they have short generation times, and they\u2019re incredibly diverse.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She pointed out that rodents make up nearly half of all mammal species, and that their evolution correlates with landscape change.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cOur teeth have a tight correlation with body size,\u201d Peng said. \u201cMammals need a certain surface area of teeth to sustain their body mass, so we can estimate body mass just from a single tooth. Each of these little vials in the museum is full of one rodent tooth. Sometimes, it\u2019s a tiny speck, but from that speck, we can estimate the size of the entire animal. We go to museums and very painstakingly measure thousands of these tiny teeth. It\u2019s slow, detailed work, but it gives us an incredible dataset to understand biodiversity through time.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Using those measurements, Peng compared fossil data from the \u2018active region\u2019 in the Rocky Mountains to the \u2018passive region\u2019 in the Great Plains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cTaxonomic diversity is higher in the active region, so there are more species in the Rockies,\u201d she said. \u201cWhen we look at morphological disparity &#8211; how different those species are from each other &#8211; it tells a completely different story.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>She showed the audience an unexpected result from this disparity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cEven though there are fewer species in the Great Plains, they\u2019re actually more morphologically diverse,\u201d Peng said. \u201cDespite being more flat and homogeneous, we\u2019re actually getting more functional diversity in the Plains, which is the opposite of what you might expect. If we only looked at species counts, we would have missed that story entirely. More species don\u2019t automatically mean more biodiversity in the ways that matter. What really matters is what those organisms are doing in their ecosystems. The Great Plains might look simple and flat, but evolution has been anything but simple.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Peng emphasized that museum collections make this kind of research possible, preserving fossils that allow scientists to study ecosystems millions of years old.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>\u201cMuseums are key to understanding past, present and future biodiversity,\u201d she said. \u201cNone of this work would have been possible without museum collections, and these fossils give us a window into ecosystems that existed millions of years ago and help us understand what\u2019s happening today.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For more information about the upcoming Science Cafes, visit <a href=\"https:\/\/www.fhsu.edu\/smei\/science-cafe\/\">https:\/\/www.fhsu.edu\/smei\/science-cafe\/<\/a> or follow the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/FHSUScienceCafe\">FHSU Science Cafe <\/a>Facebook page.&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By RORY MOORE Tiger Media Network Fort Hays State University\u2019s Science and Mathematics Education Institute hosted the Fossils, Museums, and 66 Million Years Science Cafe&hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":142,"featured_media":94019,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[3397,3398,11],"tags":[15700,276],"class_list":["post-94014","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-area-news","category-campus-news","category-news","tag-rory-moore","tag-science-cafe"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/tigermedianet.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/02\/Science-Cafe-4.jpg?fit=1055%2C646&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94014","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/142"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=94014"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94014\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":94020,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/94014\/revisions\/94020"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/94019"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=94014"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=94014"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tigermedianet.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=94014"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}