The interface of paleontology and mammalogy: Past, present, and future

Abstract

For nearly a century the fields of mammalogy and paleomammalogy have complemented each other, although the relative influence of one on the other has waxed and waned. The development of new techniques, databases, and information-handling capabilities in the past decades have enhanced the potential for working at the interface between these 2 fields in ways never before possible. This portends an elevated role for mammalogy in the development of ecological and evolutionary theory and serves as a model for merging paleontological and neontological data in other disciplines.