Phylogeny and Evolutionary History of Three Clades of Neotropical Snakes

有两个中心主题贯穿着许多与 生物多样性模式的起源：（1）模式如何 适应的多样性（例如，喂养专业化） 在进化谱系中进化 （2）模式是如何 在生物的地理分布中， 生物和地质的相互作用（例如， 大陆漂移过程 进化论假说 血统成员之间的关系（血缘关系）是 这些问题的答案所依据的基础。 拟议中的研究将建立一个详细的遗传学 对于三个血统的中美洲和南美洲蛇选择 形态和生态的多样性。 这些将是 用于解决有关进化模式的问题， 这种多样性，并将提供一个历史框架， 解释它们的分布。 要研究的血统 包括唯一定居在加拉帕戈斯群岛的蛇， 这被认为是一个经典的“自然实验“， 对进化过程的研究。 与以下方面有关的实地工作： 该项目将证明生态信息，包括 物种，形态学研究标本，组织 随后的生化分析。 蛇之间的关系 利用形态特征和生化指标进行评价 蛋白质（酶）和核酸（DNA）的特征。 的 为这些血统开发的基因将直接 适用于有关进化生物学的问题， 这些蛇。 然而，更普遍的是， 在解决有关进化问题方面的重要性 产生形态多样性的过程， 关于分布史的假说（地理学） 中美洲和南美洲的动物群。

Two central themes pervade many questions relating to the origin of patterns in biological diversity: (1) How do patterns of diversity in adaptation (for example, feeding specializations) evolve within evolutionary lineages? and (2) How are patterns in the geographic distributions of organisms generated through the interaction of biological and geological (for example, continental drift processes? Hypotheses of evolutionary relationships (phylogeny) among members of a lineage are the foundation upon which answers to such questions are based. The proposed research will establish a detailed phylogeny for three lineages of Central and South American snakes selected for their morphological and ecological diversity. These will be used to address questions concerning patterns of evolution of that diversity and will provide a historical framework for interpreting their distributions. The lineages to be studied include the only snakes to have colonized the Galapagos Islands, which have been considered a classic "natural experiment " for the study of evolutionary processes. Field work associated with the project will proved ecological information on the included species, specimens for morphological studies, and tissues for subsequent biochemical analyses. Relationships among snakes will be evaluated using morphological characters and biochemical characters of proteins (enzymes) and nucleic acids (DNA). The phylogenies developed for these lineages will be directly applicable to questions concerning the evolutionary biology of these snakes. More generally, however, there will be significance in addressing questions concerning evolutionary processes that generate diversity in morphology, and historical hypotheses concerning the distributional history (biogeography) of the Central and South American fauna.