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Kathleen M. Muldoon

6047 Silsby Hall
Hanover, NH 03755
Phone: 603-646-9831 (Anthropology Office) - 603-650-1638 (Medical School Office)
Fax: 603-646-1140
kathleen.muldoon at dartmouth.edu

For more information about my research visit: http://www.dartmouth.edu/~kmuldoon/index.htm

I am a biological anthropologist specializing in primate evolution and ecology. In my research, I use the fossil record as a framework for addressing questions of community change over time. I am primarily interested in the response of primate communities to environmental change and human impact.

My research focuses on understanding recent extinctions in Madagascar. Since human colonization 2300 years ago, Madagascar’s native mammal community has suffered the loss of dozens of species, including the giant subfossil lemurs. My goal is to understand how primate communities in Madagascar have been influenced by these extinctions. The subfossil record provides a unique opportunity to approach this question. By comparing “subfossil communities” with modern ones, insights can be drawn into the degree of change experienced by those communities over time. With funding from the National Science Foundation, Geological Society of America, The Field Museum, Sigma Xi, and Lambda Alpha, I have applied this comparative approach to reconstruct the ancient environment of Ankilitelo, a cave site in southwestern Madagascar that documents the latest survival of the giant lemurs (500 years ago).

With funding from the American Philosophical Society, the America Association of Physical Anthropologists, and the Claire Garber Goodman fund, I am currently extending this model to the analysis of subfossil assemblages of greater time depth, to examine patterns of community change over time in western Madagascar. The results of these comparisons have practical conservation implications, given the fragile state of living lemur habitats in Madagascar. I am involved in collaborative projects with Laurie Godfrey and Steve King (University of Massachusetts, Amherst) to understand the functional anatomy of teeth, as it relates to diet and life history. In particular, we are using GIS-based 3D techniques in order to interpret the diet and lifeways of the mysterious extinct giant lemur, *Hadropithecus*. I am working with Patricia Wright (Stony Brook University) and Sarah Karpanty (Virginia Tech University) to identify damage inflicted to primate and other mammal bones in hawk middens and carnivore scats from Ranomafana National Park, southeastern Madagascar. The identification of prey material can be used to explore the impact of predation by diurnal raptors on the evolution of lemur social organization. I am also working with Matthew O’Neill (Stony Brook University) to measure daily energy expenditure in free-ranging and wild lemurs.

I became interested in primate evolution and ecology while I was a student at the University of Toronto (H.B.Sc., 1999; M.A., 2000) and Washington University (A.M., 2003, Ph.D., 2006). Over the years, I have participated in fieldwork and museum research in Canada (Toronto), USA (Wyoming, Utah, Texas), France, Germany, Hungary, Ethiopia, and Madagascar.

I teach Human Osteology and Primate Extinctions: Past and Present in the Department of Anthropology. I also teach Human Anatomy and Embryology in the Department of Anatomy at Dartmouth Medical School.

Publications

  • Burrows AM, Muldoon KM, Sylvester AD, eds. 2011. New Models and Insights into Primate Evolutionary Morphology. Anatomy Research International Special Issue, 2011.
  • Muchlinski MN, Godfrey LR, Muldoon KM, and Tongasoa L. 2010. Evidence for dietary niche separation based on infraorbital foramen size variation among subfossil lemurs. Folia Primatologica 81, 330-345.
  • Samonds KE, Parent SN, Muldoon KM, Crowley BE and Godfrey LR. 2010. Rock matrix surrounding subfossil lemur skull yields a diverse collection of mammalian subfossils: implications for reconstructing Madagascar’s paleoenvironments. Malagasy Nature (In press)
  • Kamilar JM and Muldoon KM. 2010. Climatic niche diversity of Malagasy primates: a phylogenetic perspective. PLOS One 5, 1-10.
  • Muldoon KM and Goodman SM. 2010. Ecological biogeography of Malagasy non-volant mammals: community structure is correlated with habitat. Journal of Biogeography 37, 1144-1159.
  • Muldoon KM. 2010. Paleoenvironment of Ankilitelo Cave (late Holocene, southwestern Madagascar): implications for the extinction of giant lemurs. Journal of Human Evolution 58, 338-352.
  • Muldoon KM, DeBlieux DD, Simons EL, and Chatrath PS 2009. The subfossil occurrence and paleoecological significance of small mammals at Ankilitelo Cave, southwestern Madagascar. Journal of Mammalogy (October 2009).
  • Muldoon KM and Simons EL (2007) Ecogeographic size variation in small-bodied subfossil primates from Ankilitelo, SW Madagascar. American Journal of Physical Anthropology 134, 152-161.
  • Kelley EA, Sussman RW, and Muldoon KM (2007) The status of lemur species at Antserananomby: an update. Primate Conservation. 22, 71-77.
  • Simons EL, Simons VFH, Chatrath PS, Muldoon KM, Oliphant M, Pistole N, Savas C (2004) Research on subfossils in southwestern Madagascar and Ankilitelo Cave. Lemur News 9, 12-16.
  • Kappelman J, Rasmussen DT, Sanders WJ, Feseha M, Bown TM, Copeland P, Crabaugh J, Fleagle JG Glantz M, Gordon A, Jacobs B, Maga M, Muldoon KM, Pan A, Pyne L, Richmond B, Ryan T, Seiffert ER, Sen S, Todd L, Wiemann MC, and Winkler A. (2003) New Oligocene mammals from Ethiopia and the pattern and timing of faunal exchange between Afro-Arabia and Eurasia. Nature 426, 549-552
  • Muldoon KM and Gunnell GF (2002) Omomyid primates (Tarsiiformes) from the early middle Eocene at South Pass, Greater Green River Basin, Wyoming. Journal of Human Evolution 43(4), 479-511

Last Updated: 9/1/11