ABR: Systematics of Salamanders of Western North America andTropical America

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This is a proposal to continue and extend work in progress on the systematics of salamanders from the western United States and from Middle America. The main emphasis of the study is the morphology and genetic variation of the species. The main morphological topic is the development and comparative structure of the brains of salamanders that use extreme fast and far- reaching tongues to capture prey. Comparative anatomical studies of other parts of the organism will also be conducted. Both protein and nucleic acid variation will be studied in a number of species. A long range goal of this study is to determine how many species of salamanders there are in these regions, and to determine the patterns of phylogenetic relationships among them, as they are important to our understanding of ecology and earth history.