Dissertation Research: Feeding Ecomorphology of Crotaphytid Lizards: Illuminating Casuality Through Integration

生态形态学是一门从对生物形态学和自然史之间关系的兴趣中产生的分支学科。形态学包括结构和功能两个方面。将这些水平的变化与整个生物体性能的变化联系起来可以帮助揭示形态和性能之间的因果关系。这与在生物生态学或行为中表现衡量的重要性的论证相结合，使生态形态学推断更加有力。本文是对单系虎蜥科摄食生态形态学研究的一项建议。croapti虫在摄食器结构、摄食行为和饮食生态等方面呈现出变化趋势。咬合力是影响摄食行为和饲料生态的重要性能变量。本文将对三种croaphytid类群的摄食器进行结构和功能分析，建立计算机模型。这些模型将产生咬合力的预测，并将通过咬合力测量进行测试。模拟模型的结构和功能扰动将有助于确定结构和功能变化与咬力变化之间的因果关系。这种因果关系的识别将形态学研究与生态学和行为联系起来，并最终促进对生态形态进化的严格评估。

Wake 9700914 Ecomorphology is a sub-discipline that has emerged from interest in the relationship between organismal morphology and natural history. Morphology includes both structure and function. Relating variation at these levels to variation in whole-organism performance can help to reveal causality between morphology and performance. This, combined with demonstration of the importance of performance measures in organismal ecoloey or behavior, makes ecomorphological inference more robust. This is a proposal to study the feeding ecomorphology of the monophyletic lizard family Crotaphytidae. Crotaphytids show trends in feeding apparatus structure, feeding behavior, and dietary ecology. Bite force is an important performance variable influencing feeding behavior and dietary ecology. Structural and functional analyses of the feeding apparatus of three crotaphytid taxa will be used to construct computer models. These models will generate predictions of bite force that will be tested by bite-force measurement. Simulated structural and functional perturbations of the models will help to identify causality between structural and functional variation and biteforce variation. Identification of such causality links studies of morphology to ecology and behavior and, ultimately, facilitates rigorous evaluation of ecomorphological evolution.