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

WAKE 9700914生态地貌学是对生物形态和自然历史之间的关系感兴趣而产生的一个分支学科。形态包括结构和功能。将这些水平的差异与整个生物体表现的差异联系起来，有助于揭示形态和表现之间的因果关系。这一点，再加上对生物生态或行为中绩效衡量的重要性的论证，使生态形态推理更加稳健。这是研究单系蜥蜴科摄食生态的一项建议。交尾类在取食器官结构、取食行为和食物生态等方面表现出趋势性。咬合力是影响摄食行为和食物生态的重要性能变量。将利用对三个类群摄食装置的结构和功能分析来构建计算机模型。这些模型将产生咬合力的预测，并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合力变化之间的因果关系。这种因果关系的识别将形态研究与生态学和行为学联系起来，最终有助于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.