Collaborative Research: Jaws and Backbone: Chondrichthyan Phylogeny and a Spine for the Vertebrate Tree of Life

软骨鱼，或鲨鱼，射线和嵌合体，是流行文化中最著名的海洋动物，但在它们的进化方面知之甚少。尽管是一个古老的群体，但我们对导致其目前多样性的模式和过程知之甚少-这种多样性正日益受到环境和捕鱼压力的威胁。该项目将对鲨鱼、冰鞋、鳐和银鲛的多样性进行编目，提供基于DNA序列比较的关系谱系，并提供一个数据库的3-基于CT扫描数据的三维虚拟骨架，以记录主要谱系的所有物理变化特征。该项目将涉及技术的开发，这些技术将影响DNA序列的收集方式，有机体这可能对基于比较方法的比较生物化学，生理学和医学等学科产生深远的影响。该项目的推广部分将利用鲨鱼的普遍吸引力，展示现代分子生物学和计算机可视化技术如何被应用于更好地了解世界上日益受到威胁的生物多样性的演变。该项目是一项为期10年的努力的一部分，旨在收集和调动与美国研究收藏的生物标本有关的科学信息。该项目的图像和数字化数据将被纳入在线国家资源，如社区战略计划所述，可在http://digbiocol.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digistratplanfinaldraft.pdf上查阅。

The Chondrichthyans, or sharks, rays and chimaeras, are some of the best known marine animals in popular culture but poorly known in terms of their evolution. Despite being an ancient group, we know surprisingly little about the patterns and processes that gave rise to their current diversity - a diversity that is increasingly under threat through environmental and fishing pressures. This project will catalog the diversity of sharks, skates, rays and chimaeras, provide a genealogy of relationships based on DNA sequence comparisons, and provide a data base of 3-D virtual skeletons based on CT scan data to document all of the physical variations that characterize the major lineages.The project will involve the development of technologies that will impact the way DNA sequences are collected for the purpose of comparison across organisms. This could have far reaching benefits for disciplines such as comparative biochemistry, physiology and medicine that are based on comparative approaches. The outreach component of the project will exploit the popular appeal of sharks to show how modern molecular biology and computer visualization techniques are being applied to better understand the evolution of the world's increasingly threatened biodiversity.This project is part of a 10-year effort to digitize and mobilize the scientific information associated with biological specimens held in U.S. research collections. The images and digitized data from this project will be integrated into the online national resource as outlined in the community strategic plan available at http://digbiocol.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digistratplanfinaldraft.pdf.