Collaborative Research: A Complete Species Level Phylogeny of the Carnivora

韦恩、弗林和合作者建议提供迄今为止最详细的脊椎动物关系的研究，包括哺乳动物食肉动物，如猫、狗、黄鼠狼、浣熊和海豹。这一努力代表了首次尝试记录中等多样性哺乳动物目中所有物种之间的关系。研究人员将利用33个基因的DNA序列，绘制出数百个物种的全面关系树，这将构成测试有关影响食肉动物行为、生态和功能的各种特征是如何以及何时进化并由自然选择形成的想法的基础。此外，该提案支持收集现存和灭绝的食肉动物的形态数据，这些数据将与DNA序列数据相结合，以测试关于进化史的关键观点。与公共资助的狗的基因组测序和猫的部分测序一起，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，为解释人类和其他哺乳动物序列差异的重要性增加一个新的维度。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、几名研究生和数十名本科生。此外，在这个项目中合作的研究人员和机构联盟（5所大学，两个博物馆，一个政府实验室，加上国际合作者）处于良好的位置，可以更深入地让K-12学生和教师以及公众沉浸在系统生物学研究的方法和结果中。最后，科学家们将开发一个包含经验和分析信息的多层网站，以及一个利用食肉动物来说明系统学基本概念的巡回博物馆展览。

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.