Molecular Phylogenetics and the Evolution of Rattlesnakes [Crotalus and Sistrurus]

分子系统发育学和响尾蛇的进化 [Crotalus 和 Sistrurus]

• 批准号: 0233850
• 负责人: Kelly Zamudio
• 金额: $ 29.03万
• 依托单位: Cornell University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2003
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2003-03-01 至 2007-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0233850&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Molecular; Phylogenetics; Evolution; Rattlesnakes; Crotalus

A grant has been awarded to Dr. Kelly R. Zamudio and Dr. Harry W. Greene at Cornell University to study rattlesnake evolution. The 28 species comprise a group of ecologically diverse New World pitvipers with unique tail shaker muscles and noise-making segments on their modified tail tips. Despite widespread interest by scientists and the public, previous inferences about their origin and diversification were made prior to recent innovations in molecular systematics. No evidence exists for a widespread belief that rattles evolved in response to bison herds, for example, and new statistical approaches for studying biogeography and character evolution have not previously been applied to this topic. Zamudio and Greene will sequence the DNA in several nuclear and mitochondrial genes of rattlesnakes and their relatives, with the immediate goals of reconstructing their relationships and biogeographic history, then testing five alternative scenarios of rattle origin. Rattlesnakes play increasingly prominent roles in anthropology, ecology, evolutionary biology, conservation, and biomedical research, topics on which Zamudio and Greene's findings will provide important comparative perspectives. Rattlesnakes are important predators and knowledge of evolutionary relationships will elucidate the roles of speciation and other historical factors in structuring natural communities. As examples of implications for understanding and eventually treating human diseases, because they exhibit parental care that is not complicated by the feeding of young, female rattlesnakes offer a simple model system for studying hormonal control of that behavior. Likewise, the shaker muscle anatomically and physiologically resembles heart tissue, and in recent years the tails of restrained, live rattlesnakes have proved extremely useful for studying muscle biochemistry in intact organisms with NMR and other in vivo techniques. Understanding rattlesnake evolutionary relationships will enable researchers to strategically choose species that have or lack particular characteristics, and thereby untangle the molecular mechanisms underlying the development of normal and abnormal functions.

一笔赠款已授予凯利R博士。作者声明：Dr.格林在康奈尔大学研究响尾蛇的进化。这28个物种包括一组生态多样的新世界pitvipers与独特的尾巴振动肌肉和噪音制造节的修改尾尖。尽管科学家和公众的广泛兴趣，以前的推论，他们的起源和多样化之前，在分子系统学的最新创新。例如，没有证据表明人们普遍认为摇铃是为了应对野牛群而进化的，而且研究地理学和性格进化的新统计方法以前也没有应用于这一主题。萨穆迪奥和格林将对响尾蛇及其亲属的几个核基因和线粒体基因进行DNA测序，其直接目标是重建它们的关系和地理历史，然后测试响尾蛇起源的五种替代方案。 响尾蛇在人类学、生态学、进化生物学、保护和生物医学研究中扮演着越来越重要的角色，萨穆迪奥和格林的发现将为这些主题提供重要的比较视角。响尾蛇是重要的捕食者和进化关系的知识将阐明物种形成和其他历史因素在构建自然群落中的作用。作为理解和最终治疗人类疾病的启示的例子，因为它们表现出父母的照顾，并不复杂的喂养年轻，雌性响尾蛇提供了一个简单的模型系统，用于研究荷尔蒙控制的行为。同样，振动肌在解剖学和生理学上类似于心脏组织，近年来，被束缚的活响尾蛇的尾巴被证明对用NMR和其他体内技术研究完整生物体的肌肉生物化学非常有用。了解响尾蛇的进化关系将使研究人员能够战略性地选择具有或缺乏特定特征的物种，从而解开正常和异常功能发展的分子机制。