Collaborative Research: A Complete Species Level Phylogeny of the Carnivora

韦恩，弗林和合作者提出提供最详细的检查，以日期的关系，在脊椎动物的秩序，包括哺乳动物食肉动物，如猫，狗，黄鼠狼，浣熊和海豹。这一努力代表了第一次尝试记录所有物种的关系，在一个适度多样化的哺乳动物秩序。研究人员将使用33个基因的DNA序列生成一个包含数百个物种的综合关系树，这将成为测试关于影响食肉动物行为、生态和功能的各种性状如何以及何时进化并被自然选择塑造的基础。此外，该提案还支持收集现存和灭绝的食肉动物的形态学数据，这些数据将与DNA序列数据相结合，以测试有关进化历史的关键思想。沿着公共资助的狗的基因组测序和猫的部分测序，这项研究将增加一个食肉动物序列数据的比较数据库，并提供一个进化的视角，将为解释人类和其他哺乳动物序列差异的意义增加一个新的维度。该项目包括支持下一代系统学家的广泛培训和机构间交流，包括三名博士后科学家，几名研究生和几十名本科生。此外，在这个项目中合作的研究人员和机构（5所大学，两个博物馆，一个政府实验室，加上国际合作者）的财团处于有利地位，更深入地沉浸在K-12学生和教师，以及公众，在系统生物学研究的方法和结果。最后，科学家们将开发一个多层次的网站，提供经验和分析信息，并利用食肉动物来说明系统学的基本概念。

Wayne, Flynn, and collaborators propose to provide the most detailed examination to date of relationships within the vertebrate order that includes mammalian carnivores such as cats, dogs, weasels, raccoons and seals. This effort represents the first attempt to document the relationship of all species in a moderately diverse mammal order. The researchers will produce a comprehensive relationship tree of several hundred species using DNA sequences of 33 genes that will form the basis for testing ideas about how and when various traits influencing carnivore behavior, ecology and function have evolved and been shaped by natural selection. Additionally, the proposal supports collection of morphologic data on living and extinct carnivores that will be combined with the DNA sequence data to test key ideas about evolutionary history. Along with the public-financed genome sequencing of the dog and partial sequencing of the cat, this study will add a comparative database of carnivore sequence data and provide an evolutionary perspective that will add a new dimension to interpreting the significance of sequence differences in humans and other mammals.This project includes support for extensive training and inter-institutional exchange of the next generation of systematists, including three post-doctoral scientists, several graduate students and dozens of undergraduates. Further, the consortium of investigators and institutions collaborating in this project (5 universities, two museums, one governmental laboratory, plus international collaborators) are well situated to more deeply immerse K-12 students and teachers, and the general public, in the approaches and results of systematic biology research. Finally, the scientists will develop a multi-layer web site with empirical and analytical information and a traveling museum exhibit using carnivores to illustrate fundamental concepts in systematics.