PEET: Phylogenetic Systematics of Dorid Nudibranchs

Gosliner 9978155海蛞蝓（海蛞蝓）是色彩鲜艳的海洋蜗牛，最常见于热带海洋。 这些动物中的大多数已经失去了在其他类型的蜗牛中发现的保护壳。 为了保护自己，海蛞蝓产生有毒的化学物质，可用于医学。 虽然海蛞蝓对了解各种生物过程很重要，但大多数物种的分类和地理范围仍然知之甚少。 事实上，6,000种海蛞蝓中的许多种仍然没有被描述。大多数海蛞蝓的主要群体是在19世纪后期描述的，大多数从那时起就没有被重新研究过。 关于海蛞蝓进化的信息很少，这些蜗牛的大多数亚群都是基于主观比较，而不是科学的进化研究。 这个PEET项目的重点将是描述新的物种，并根据解剖学的进化研究确定海蛞蝓的自然群体。 由于许多种类的海蛞蝓进化出相似的外观，分子研究将被用来补充解剖学信息。 DNA分子中包含的信息可能为海蛞蝓内部模式的进化提供证据。 我们将来自各种来源的数据汇集在一起的策略为研究实际上不同谱系之间具有高度表面相似性的动物提供了一个模型。 通过这种方式，该项目不仅将在海蛞蝓生物学特有的问题上取得进展，而且还将研究无数途径，通过这些途径，明显无关的生物可以达到适应环境的类似解决方案。这项研究将包括培训博士后、研究生和本科生，对海蛞蝓进行现代系统研究。 学生将参与拟议研究的各个方面，包括野外采集，物种描述，形态和分子数据收集以及进化分析。 该项目的产品将包括几种出版物和一个网页，该网页将提供彩色图像，显示活体动物的变异、基因序列、详细地图、书目和其他数据。

Gosliner 9978155Sea slugs (nudibranchs) are colorful marine snails most commonly found in tropical oceans. Most of these animals have lost the protective shell found in other types of snails. In order to defend themselves, sea slugs produce toxic chemicals that have applications in medicine. Although sea slugs are important for understanding a variety of biological processes, classification and geographical ranges of most species remain poorly known. In fact, many of the 6,000 species of sea slugs are still undescribed. Most of the major groups of sea slugs were described during the latter part of the 19th century and the majority have not been re-examined since. Very little information is available on the evolution of sea slugs and most of the subgroups of these snails are based on subjective comparisons rather than on scientific evolutionary studies. The focus of this PEET project will be to describe new species and determine natural groups of sea slugs based on evolutionary studies of anatomy. Since many groups of sea slugs have evolved similar external appearances, molecular studies will be used to supplement the anatomical information. The information contained in the molecules of DNA may provide evidence for the evolution of patterns within the sea slugs. Our strategy of bringing together data from a variety of sources provides a model for the study of animals with high degrees of superficial similarities between what are actually different lineages. In this way, the project will provide not only advances in problems specific to sea slug biology, but to the study of the myriad pathways by which clearly unrelated organisms can arrive at similar solutions to adaptive circumstances. This study will involve training of postdoctoral, graduate and undergraduate students to conduct modern systematic research on sea slugs. Students will be involved in all aspects of the proposed research, including field collections, species descriptions, morphological and molecular data collection and evolutionary analysis. The products from the project will include several publications and a Web page that will provide color images showing variation in living animals, gene sequences, detailed maps, bibliographies, and other data.