Collaborative Research: Life History Strategies, Growth Rates and Microstructural Character Evolution across the Coelurosaurian/Avialan Transition

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ABSTRACT: COLLABORATIVE RESEARCH--LIFE HISTORY STRATEGIES, GROWTH RATES AND MICROSTRUCTURAL CHARACTEREVOLUTION ACROSS THE COELUROSAURIAN/AVIALAN TRANSITIONGregory M. Erickson. Kristina Curry-Rogers, Mark Norell Birds (avialan dinosaurs) are unique among living animals in showing extremely rapid growth rates. How they attained this capacity is unknown. In our research we will reconstruct the growth of the earliest birds and their closest ancestors, the coelurosaurian dinosaurs. We will do this by coupling age estimates (garnered through growth line counts) with size estimates for a diversity of fossil species. From the results we will be able to quantitatively assess when and how avian growth rates were generated and determine whether the first birds were simply feathered dinosaurs or physiological equivalents to living species. Aside from helping us to understand how the most speciose group of animals living in our world came to came to be, broader impacts of this research include: 1) establishing a World Wide Web site from which the lay pubic and professions can learn about scientific research, 2) providing advanced scientific training to undergraduate and graduate students including those from underrepresented groups, and 3) providing material for our public and non-major collegiate lectures in paleontology.