DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Winging It! Phylogeny and Evolution of the Helicopter Damselflies (Pseudostigmatidae: Odonata)

论文研究：即兴发挥！

• 批准号: 0807979
• 负责人: Marc Branham
• 金额: $ 1.19万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-07-15 至 2009-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0807979&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Winging; Phylogeny; Evolution

This research focuses on a group of very large, unique and endangered insects, the helicopter damselflies. These insects exhibit unique feeding and flight behaviors and have adopted a unique habitat for damselflies (forest canopy dweller). These characteristics have resulted in several structural adaptations to the wing in both form and support. Two other features make helicopter damselflies an appropriate group for studying the evolution of wing structures within insects: they are members of one of the most primitive winged groups of insects alive today (Odonata) and they have one of the best fossil records of any insect lineage. This research will also focus on determining evolutionary relationships within this and a related group of damselflies. This research focuses on a familiar group of organisms, damselflies, and will generate baseline data that are needed for their conservation. Further, this research seeks data from multiple sources (DNA and morphology from living and fossil specimens), in order to study insect wing evolution over the past 100 million years. This information has applications to the field of biomechanics, such as insect wing modeling and the design of micro air vehicles. Results from this research will have a broad educational impact via development of an online Tutorial On Evolution designed for use in the high school classroom, peer-reviewed publications, and by depositing image data on the on-line image database, MorphBank.

这项研究的重点是一组非常大的，独特的和濒危的昆虫，直升机豆娘。 这些昆虫表现出独特的进食和飞行行为，并采取了一个独特的栖息地豆娘（森林冠层居民）。这些特点导致了几个结构调整的机翼在形式和支持。 另外两个特征使直升机豆娘成为研究昆虫翅膀结构进化的合适群体：它们是当今最原始的有翼昆虫群体之一（蜻蜓目）的成员，并且它们拥有任何昆虫谱系中最好的化石记录之一。 这项研究还将侧重于确定这一群体和一个相关群体的豆娘的进化关系。这项研究的重点是一组熟悉的生物，豆娘，并将产生基线数据，需要他们的保护。 此外，这项研究还从多个来源（活体和化石标本的DNA和形态学）寻求数据，以研究过去1亿年来昆虫翅膀的进化。这些信息可以应用于生物力学领域，例如昆虫翅膀建模和微型飞行器的设计。从这项研究的结果将有一个广泛的教育影响，通过开发一个在线的进化论，设计用于高中课堂，同行评审的出版物，并通过存储在在线图像数据库，MorphBank的图像数据。