The Role of Morphological Integration in the Evolutionary History of Artiodactyla

这项研究询问在个体生长过程中头骨的不同特征在多大程度上是协调的（整合的），以及一个物种所表现出的发育整合程度如何影响其进化潜力。有人认为，高水平的发育整合将促进进化变化，尽管方向有限，因为独立适应的角色会更少。本研究的目的是直接测试这一论点，通过探索发展的整合和多样化模式之间的关系，在整个偶蹄动物的进化历史。偶蹄目，其中包括我们大多数的经济上重要的家养动物，是最多样化的哺乳动物群体生活在今天，他们的进化历史已经涉及到广泛的多样化模式。头骨形状和整合将被测量为许多生活和灭绝的偶蹄动物物种，从而允许跨物种和通过时间的发展整合水平的比较。多样性将使用形态学和分类学指标进行量化，这一项目的结果将对依赖于将独立的形态特征识别为生物变化的基本单位的进化生物学的广泛研究产生影响。这项拟议中的研究也可能对保护生物学产生影响：了解物种整合与进化潜力之间的任何联系可能有助于优先考虑濒危物种的保护工作。该项目还将涉及开发新的分析计算机软件和收集新的形态测量数据，所有这些数据都将存放在免费的在线档案中，以方便其他研究人员进行可比分析并促进合作。

This study asks to what extent different features of the skull are coordinated (integrated) during the growth of individuals, and how the degree of developmental integration exhibited by a species may influence its potential to evolve. It has been argued that a high level of developmental integration would facilitate evolutionary change, albeit in limited directions, because there would be fewer characters going through adaptation independently. This study aims to test this argument directly, by exploring the relationships between developmental integration and diversification patterns throughout the evolutionary history of artiodactyls. Artiodactyls, which include most of our economically important domestic animals, are among the most diverse mammal groups living today, and their evolutionary history has involved a wide range of diversification patterns. Skull shape and integration will be measured for each of the many living and extinct artiodactyl species, thus permitting comparison of developmental integration levels across species and through time. Diversification will be quantified using both morphological and taxonomic indices.The results of this project will have implications for a wide spectrum of studies in evolutionary biology that rely on recognizing independent morphological characters as the basic units of biological change. The proposed study could have implications for conservation biology as well: an understanding of any association between integration and the evolutionary potential of species may help in prioritizing conservation efforts of endangered species. The project will also involve development of novel analytical computer software and collection of new morphometric data, all of which will be deposited in free online archives to facilitate comparable analyses by other researchers and promote collaborations.