Marius Robu, PhD
Researcher at “Emil Racoviță” Institute of Speleology
Romanian Academy
Research lines
My research is focused on subterranean settings, mainly from karst regions, where I investigate the population dynamics of extinct late Pleistocene cave bears and associated fauna, diet peculiarities, palaeoenvironment, palaeoichnology, osteometry and taphonomy.
I have worked in the field of cave palaeontology (late Pleistocene large mammals) since the beginning of my PhD in 2008 and during my post-doctoral activity. The focus of my work is trying to refine to my best the F-L-P triangle of research (Fieldwork – Lab – Publishing).
Biography
I graduated in Geography (Geomorphology and Pedology) at the University of Bucharest in 2007, and received my PhD in Biology from the Romanian Academy in 2015. In 2007 I was appointed as Junior Researcher at “Emil Racoviță“ Institute of Speleology and in 2018 I became a Senior Researcher at the same institution.
I am involved in various national and international inter-/multidisciplinarity research projects studying mammal palaeontology, geochemistry, taphonomy, sedimentology, geochronology and geomorphology of quaternary cave/surface deposits.
I am the principal investigator of INTEGRATE research project, funded by the Romanian Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization. The project investigates the paleoecology and the extinction of MIS 3 fauna from the Romanian Carpathians.
Publications
Isotopic evidence for dietary flexibility among European Late Pleistocene cave bears (Ursus spelaeus). Robu, M., Fortin, J., Richards, M., Schwartz, C., Wynn, J., Robbins, C.T., Trinkaus, E., 2013. Canadian Journal of Zoology, 91: 227–234.
The assessment of the internal architecture of an MIS 3 cave bear bone assemblage. Case study: Urşilor Cave, Western Carpathians, Romania. Robu, M., 2016. Palaeogeography, Palaeoclimatology, Palaeoecology, 444: 115–123.
The diverse dietary profiles of MIS 3 cave bears from the Romanian Carpathians: insights from stable isotope (δ13C and δ15N) analysis. Robu, M., Wynn, G. J., Mirea, I. C., Petculescu, A., Kenesz, M., Puşcaş, C.M., Vlaicu, M., Trinkaus, E., Constantin, S., 2017. Palaeontology, 61(2): 209–219.
