DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Phenotypic and niche evolution in the antbirds (Aves, Thamnophilidae)

该项目的基本研究目标是了解蚁科（Thamnophilidae）的进化历史、地理和生态学在产生蚁的形态和行为多样性方面的相对作用。蚁科是一种物种丰富的鸟类，栖息在南美洲和中美洲的热带低地森林中。将遗传数据与蚁群中每个物种的形态、行为、生态、地理和环境数据相结合，将有助于加深对蚁群中鸣叫、形状、大小和物种数量差异的理解。理解为什么有些生物群比其他生物群更多样化，以及为什么有些生物群表现出更多的行为和形态变异，是进化生物学的中心目标。众所周知，多样性并不是随着时间的推移而均匀地进化，形态和行为多样性的差异往往与群体中物种的数量有关。然而，行为和形态多样性的进化在多大程度上促进了新物种的产生，这一点尚不清楚。该项目整合了遗传、地理、生态、行为和形态信息，以及尖端的分析方法，将有助于深入了解新热带地区产生和维持生物多样性的机制。

The fundamental research goal of this project is to understand the relative roles of evolutionary history, geography, and ecology in producing the morphological and behavioral diversity of the antbirds (Thamnophilidae), a species-rich group of birds that inhabit lowland tropical forests of South and Central America. The integration of genetic data with morphological, behavioral, ecological, geographic, and environmental data for every species in the group will allow increased understanding of differences in vocalizations, shapes, sizes, and species numbers within the antbirds.Understanding why some groups of organisms are more diverse than others, and why some groups exhibit more behavioral and morphological variation, is a central goal of evolutionary biology. It is well known that diversity does not evolve uniformly over time, and that differences in morphological and behavioral diversity are often correlated with the number of species in the group. It remains unclear, however, to what extent the evolution of behavioral and morphological diversity promotes the creation of new species. The integration of genetic, geographic, ecological, behavioral and morphological information, along with cutting-edge analytical approaches, in this project will allow insights into the mechanisms that generate and maintain biological diversity in the Neotropics.