Collaborative Research: REVSYS: Revisionary Systematics of Cheirurid Trilobites

合作研究：REVSYS：Cheirurid Trilobites 的修订系统学

• 批准号: 0716065
• 负责人: Jonathan Adrain
• 金额: $ 23.7万
• 依托单位: University of Iowa
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-15 至 2012-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0716065&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; REVSYS; Revisionary; Systematics

This project involves reconstructing the evolutionary history of a major group of fossil trilobites, the family Cheiruridae. The investigators will conduct a global survey of relevant fossil species, using data from the published literature, existing field collections, new field collections, and museum specimens. Evolutionary history will be reconstructed using modern quantitative methods. Hypotheses about relationships will then be applied to a range of important questions in paleobiology, shedding light on subjects such as the nature of mass extinctions, biogeography, and rates of speciation.Knowledge of evolutionary relationships is a basic requirement for understanding the history of life on Earth, yet modern quantitative methods have not always been applied to the study of fossil animals. The project seeks to redress this by using phylogenetic analysis to consider a diverse and important fossil group; further, this study will potentially serve as a model for the use of fossils to address major evolutionary questions. The project will train several students in evolutionary systematics, will serve public and K-12 education via a website and traveling museum exhibit, and will also serve the broader discipline by generating new data and also linking these data to existing biological databases.

这个项目包括重建一个主要的三叶虫化石群的进化史，三叶虫科。研究人员将利用已发表的文献、现有的野外收集、新的野外收集和博物馆标本的数据，对相关化石物种进行全球调查。将用现代定量方法重建进化史。然后，这些关系的假设将应用于古生物学的一系列重要问题，揭示诸如大灭绝的本质、生物地理学和物种形成速率等主题。了解进化关系是了解地球生命史的基本要求，然而现代定量方法并不总是应用于动物化石的研究。该项目试图通过使用系统发育分析来考虑多样化和重要的化石群来纠正这一问题；此外，这项研究将有可能成为使用化石来解决主要进化问题的模型。该项目将培训几名进化系统学的学生，将通过网站和巡回博物馆展览服务于公共和K-12教育，并将通过生成新数据并将这些数据与现有的生物数据库联系起来，为更广泛的学科服务。