Paul L Koch

About

Paul L Koch is a Distinguished Professor in the Earth & Planetary Sciences Department at UC Santa Cruz. His expertise lies in isotope biogeochemistry, paleobiology, ecology, and evolution. He is based in the Earth & Marine Sciences building, office A115, and can be contacted via campus email at cpevc@ucsc.edu. Koch's work integrates the study of isotopic compositions to understand biological and ecological processes in the context of Earth's history and evolutionary patterns.

Research topics

• Biology
• Evolutionary biology
• Geography
• Oceanography
• Ecology
• Geology
• Fishery
• Climatology

Selected publications

• Mummified baboons reveal the far reach of early Egyptian mariners

  eLife · 2020 · 24 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  were sourced to a region that encompasses much of present-day Ethiopia, Eritrea, and Djibouti, and portions of Somalia and Yemen. This result is a testament to the tremendous reach of Egyptian seafaring during the 2nd millennium BC. It also corroborates the balance of scholarly conjecture on the location of Punt.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Widespread southern elephant seal occupation of the Victoria land coast implies a warmer-than-present Ross Sea in the mid-to-late Holocene

  Quaternary Science Reviews · 2023 · 12 citations

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Feeding morphology and body size shape resource partitioning in an eared seal community

  Biology Letters · 2023-03-01 · 10 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Body size and feeding morphology influence how animals partition themselves within communities. We tested the relationships among sex, body size, skull morphology and foraging in sympatric otariids (eared seals) from the eastern North Pacific Ocean, the most diverse otariid community in the world. We recorded skull measurements and stable carbon ( δ 13 C) and nitrogen ( δ 15 N) isotope values (proxies for foraging) from museum specimens in four sympatric species: California sea lions ( Zalophus…

  PublisherDOI

• Unexpected decadal density-dependent shifts in California sea lion size, morphology, and foraging niche

  Current Biology · 2023-04-27 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Many marine mammal populations are recovering after long eras of exploitation.1Rossi S.P. Cox S.P. Hammill M.O. den Heyer C.E. Swain D.P. Mosnier A. Benoît H.P. Forecasting the response of a recovered pinniped population to sustainable harvest strategies that reduce their impact as predators.ICES J. Mar. Sci. 2021; 78: 1804-1814https://doi.org/10.1093/icesjms/fsab088Crossref Scopus (3) Google Scholar,2Marshall K.N. Stier A.C. Samhouri J.F. Kelly R.P. Ward E.J. Conservation challenges of predator…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Stable isotope evidence for resource partitioning in extinct marine carnivores

  Palaeogeography Palaeoclimatology Palaeoecology · 2024-05-28 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Living pinnipeds play essential roles in marine ecosystems and display divergent lineage-specific foraging and habitat preferences. The origin of these ecological strategies remains unclear. We analyzed original (n = 22) and published (n = 93) stable carbon (δ13C) and oxygen (δ18O) isotope compositions of tooth enamel from fossil pinnipeds and coeval marine and terrestrial mammals from the late Early Miocene to early Middle Miocene Temblor Formation, the early Middle Miocene Round Mountain Silt…

  PublisherDOI

Recent grants

• Collaborative Research: Analysis of a Forty Thousand Year Record of Genetic and Environmental Change in the Arctic

  NSF · $111k · 2004–2007

• Collaborative Research: Spatially Varying Topographic and/or Climatic History of the Sierra Nevada Mountains

  NSF · $99k · 2003–2007

• Collaborative Research: Abandoned Elephant Seal Colonies in Antarctica: Integration of Genetic, Isotopic, and Geologic Approaches toward Understanding Holocene Environmental Change

  NSF · $118k · 2005–2009

Frequent coauthors

• Gabriel J. Bowen

  University of Utah

  81 shared

• Jin Meng

  72 shared

• André R. Wyss

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  65 shared

• Yaoming Hu

  East China University of Science and Technology

  64 shared

• Marilyn L. Fogel

  University of California System

  55 shared

• Richard W. Carlson

  Planetary Science Institute

  52 shared

• Cynthia F. Moss

  49 shared

• Anna K. Behrensmeyer

  National Museum of Natural History

  49 shared

Education

• Ph.D, Department of Geological Sciences

  University of Michigan

  1989

• M.S., Department of Geological Sciences

  University of Michigan

  1985

• B.A., Department of Geological Sciences

  University of Rochester

  1982

Awards & honors

• Charles Schuchert Award from the Paleontological Society, 19…
• Fellow, Paleontological Society, 2005
• Fellow, Geological Society of America, 2006
• Fellow, California Academy of Sciences, 2013

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• Andrew T Fisherh-60