Doctoral Dissertation: Historical Biogeography of the Antilles: Earth History and Phylogenetics of Endemic Chiropteran Taxa

美国自然历史博物馆的Nancy Simmons博士、Rob DeSalle博士和Liliana Davalos博士获得了一项赠款，用于研究加勒比海地区地球和动物群历史之间的关系，重点是蝙蝠。该项目将产生关于5组不同蝙蝠的进化关系的假设，每组蝙蝠至少包含一个专门的安的列斯物种。这些进化关系将被用来确定安的列斯群岛蝙蝠物种与它们的南美和中美洲近亲之间的分离时间和模式，并将与其他陆地生物的类似假说进行比较。Nancy Simmons博士、Rob DeSalle博士和Liliana Davalos博士将使用标准方法从研究小组获得和分析形态和分子数据。根据这些数据得出的进化关系模式将使用至少5种不同的方法进行比较。该项目将是第一个明确测试关于加勒比海陆地动物进化的长期假设的项目。该项目所产生的知识将对未来加勒比海蝙蝠的生态学、形态、行为和保护方面的生物学研究至关重要。通过描述物种多样化的模式，这项研究是了解加勒比动物群的起源和演变，并确保其在独特的和日益受到威胁的加勒比生态系统中得到保护的重要一步。

A grant has been awarded to Drs. Nancy Simmons, Rob DeSalle, and Liliana Davalos at the American Museum of Natural History to investigate the relationship between earth and faunal history in the Caribbean region, focusing on bats. The project will generate hypotheses about the evolutionary relationships of 5 different groups of bats, each containing at least one exclusively Antillean species. These evolutionary relationships will then be used to establish the timing and pattern of separation among bat species in the Antilles and their South and Central American relatives, and will also be compared with similar hypotheses about other terrestrial organisms. Drs. Nancy Simmons, Rob DeSalle, and Liliana Davalos will use standard methods for obtaining and analyzing morphological and molecular data from the study groups. Patterns of evolutionary relationships resulting from these data will be compared applying at least 5 different approaches. This project will be the first to explictly test longstanding assumptions about the evolution of the Caribbean land fauna. The knowledge generated by this project will be essential for future biological studies in ecology, morphology, behavior, and conservation of Caribbean bats. By characterizing patterns of species diversification, this study constitutes an essential step towards understanding the origin and evolution of the fauna of the Caribbean, and ensuring its conservation in unique and increasingly threatened Caribbean ecosystems.