Early Salamanders from Northern China

中国北方的早期蝾螈

• 批准号: 0126451
• 负责人: Neil Shubin
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: University of Chicago
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2002
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2002-02-01 至 2006-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0126451&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Early; Salamanders; Northern; China

Salamanders are one of the major groups of living amphibians. Unfortunately, very little is known about their early evolution because early salamander fossils have not been recovered. Indeed until now, only two species from the relevant time was known. We are now presented with an unusual opportunity to investigate major questions of salamander evolution and diversity. Over the past three years, we have recovered more than 800 superbly preserved salamander specimens from the earliest parts of salamander history. These sites, from northern China, contain a highly diverse and well preserved fauna of salamanders. Access to these sites has been granted and they can readily be quarried in an effort to recover even more specimens. The importance of these sites and this material lies in its age (these are among the earliest known salamanders), its abundance (hundreds of articulated skeletons can be collected from each site), its taxonomic diversity (several different families are present), its life-history diversity (many different parts of the life cycle are are all preserved), and its exceptional preservation (soft-tissue impressions are often present). Major goals of this project include: 1. to collect new fossils from and assess the relative age of the exceptional fossil-bearing units northern China, 2. to describe new fossil salamanders and revise known taxa, 3. to access the evolutionary and geographic history of fossil and Recent salamanders, and 4. to use the exquisite preservation of the new salamander material to address how morphological variation has evolved.

蝾螈是现存两栖动物的主要类群之一。 不幸的是，人们对它们的早期进化知之甚少，因为早期的蝾螈化石还没有被发现。 事实上，到目前为止，只有两个物种从相关的时间是已知的。 我们现在有一个不寻常的机会来调查蝾螈进化和多样性的主要问题。在过去的三年里，我们已经从蝾螈历史的最早期恢复了800多个保存完好的蝾螈标本。 这些遗址来自中国北方，包含了高度多样化和保存完好的蝾螈动物群。 进入这些地点已经被批准，它们可以很容易地被开采，以努力恢复更多的标本。 这些地点和这些材料的重要性在于它的年龄（这些是已知最早的蝾螈），它的丰富性（每个地点可以收集到数百个关节骨骼），它的分类多样性（存在几个不同的科），它的生活史多样性（生活周期的许多不同部分都被保存下来），以及它的特殊保存（软组织压痕经常存在）。 该项目的主要目标包括：1。在中国北方特殊含化石单元中采集新化石并对其进行相对年代学评价; 2.描述新的蝾螈化石并修订已知分类群;访问化石和最近蝾螈的进化和地理历史，和4。利用保存完好的新蝾螈材料来说明形态变异是如何进化的。