Intrinsic and environmental controls of evolutionary rates in Triassic to Palaeogene marine bivalves

分析控制生物多样性的过程之间复杂的相互作用，对于理解多样性是如何维持、耗尽或增加的，以及评估生物对全球变化的进化反应是至关重要的。了解控制进化速度（即起源和灭绝的速度）和多样性的因素，既具有重大的科学意义，又与社会相关。我建议研究海洋双壳类的多样性动态，由于其生态多样性大，化石记录丰富，可以作为一个模型类群。通过利用古生物数据库，我们计算了单系双壳类分支的分类群特异性进化率。此外，我们将调查具有某些生物特征（地理范围、丰度、生态位宽度、体型、生活习惯、营养群、流动性、壳矿物学）和环境偏好（例如热带与非热带气候带、碳酸盐与硅橡胶基质、珊瑚礁与底层群落等）的双壳类亚群的比率。通过这样做，我们期望对各种内在生物特征和外在、生物和非生物环境条件在形成海洋底栖生态系统一个主要组成部分的多样化方面的相对作用有新的认识。

Analysing the complex interplay of processes controlling biodiversity is fundamental for understanding how diversity is maintained, depleted, or increased, and for assessing the evolutionary response of organisms to global change. Knowing the factors that control evolutionary rates (i.e. rates of origination and of extinction), and thus diversity, is both of great scientific interest and of relevance to society. I propose to study the diversity dynamics of marine bivalves, which can serve as a model group due to their great ecological variety and rich fossil record. By utilising the Paleobiology Database, we calculate taxon-specific evolutionary rates for monophyletic bivalve clades. Furthermore, we will investigate rates for bivalve subgroups that share certain biological traits (geographic range, abundance, niche breadth, body size, life habit, trophic group, mobility, shell mineralogy), and environmental preferences (e.g. for tropical versus non-tropical climatic zones, carbonate versus siliciclastic substrates, reefs versus level-bottom communities etc.). By doing so we expect new insights into the relative role of various intrinsic biological features and extrinsic, biotic and abiotic conditions of the environment in shaping the diversification of a major component of marine benthic ecosystems.