U.S.-Nigeria Cooperative Research on Patterns of Predation and Taxonomic Diversification in Cenozoic Gastropod Assemblages

这项提案要求获得资金，以允许华盛顿大学动物系的Alan J.Kohn博士和尼日利亚大学地质系的Ingela Arua博士开展为期24个月的关于新生代腹足类群落捕食模式和分类多样化的合作研究计划。这项研究将解决这样一个问题：Conidae如此突出的复杂群落是如何及时发展起来的？合作者将利用国际和平研究所根据先前美国国家科学基金会的拨款从琉球和斐济群岛从最新中新世到最新更新世的组合中收集的材料。他们的方法将包括(1)形态测量和其他贝壳特征的多变量分析和(2)通过参考模式标本的分析和区分种内差异和种间差异来确定物种。该项目重点研究海洋腹足类软体动物中最大的一个家族--螺科。这一主要是热带海洋蜗牛的家族很重要，因为它的多样性非常高，其许多物种的地理范围很广，它作为主要捕食性群体的生态作用，主要是在印度-西太平洋区域的热带浅海，以及它对人类的不寻常的危险。它的神经毒液通常用来压制猎物，但对人类来说可能是致命的。这个项目为科恩博士的研究增加了一个国际合作的层面，该研究得到了美国国家科学基金会第号拨款的支持。BSR-8700523。Arua博士在尼日利亚始新世研究腹足类捕食模式期间获得的专业知识将极大地帮助该项目。该项目与发展中国家科学计划的目标相关，该计划旨在通过交流科学信息、思想、技能和技术，以及通过在互利问题上的合作，提高美国科学家和工程师与发展中国家同行之间的合作水平。

This proposal requests funds to permit Dr. Alan J. Kohn, Department of Zoology, University of Washington, and Dr. Ingela Arua, Department of Geology, University of Nigeria, to pursue, for a period of 24 months, a program of cooperative research on patterns of predation and taxonomic diversification in Cenozoic gastropod assemblages. The research will address the question: How did the complex communities in which Conidae are so prominent develop in time? The collaborators will utilize material collected by the PI under prior NSF grants from assemblages ranging in age from latest Miocene to latest Pleistocene in the Ryukyu and Fiji Islands. Their methods will include (1) multivariate analysis of morphometric and other shell characters and (2) species determination by reference to the analysis of type specimens and discriminating within-species variation from between-species differences. This project focuses on one of the largest families of marine gastropod molluscs, the Conidae. This family of mainly tropical marine snails is important because of its very high diversity, the broad geographic range of many of its species, its ecological role as a dominant predatory group, primarily in the shallow tropical seas of the Indo-West Pacific region, and its unusual danger to man. Its neurotoxic venom, normally used to overpower prey, can be fatal to man. This project adds an international cooperative dimension to Dr. Kohn's research supported under NSF Grant No. BSR-8700523. Dr. Arua's expertise gained during her studies of gastropod predation patterns in the Eocene of Nigeria will greatly benefit the project. This project is relevant to the objectives of the Science in Developing Countries Program which seeks to increase the level of cooperation between U.S. scientists and engineers and their counterparts in developing countries through the exchange of scientific information, ideas, skills, and techniques and through collaboration on problems of mutual benefit.