Developing a New US - Spain Collaboration in Mygalomorph Spider Systematics and Conservation

该项目的目的是促进一系列新的合作，并与项目PI Jason Bond（奥本大学）、Marshal Hedin（圣地亚哥州立大学）以及布伦特亨德里克森（米尔萨普斯学院）和Miquel阿尔内多（西班牙巴塞罗那大学）建立伙伴关系。 巴塞罗那的项目规划之旅将汇集一组对Mygalomorph蜘蛛的进化，系统学，保护和分类学感兴趣的调查人员。 蜘蛛下目（活板门蜘蛛，狼蛛，和他们的亲属），是一个生物学上独特的分支早期分歧蜘蛛;它的许多成员都为非蜘蛛学家所熟知，包括世界上最大的（tarantulas），最毒的（澳大利亚“漏斗网”蜘蛛），和大多数长寿的蜘蛛。规划之旅将集中在审查的状态mygalomorph分类，以确定“问题”谱系，将现有的所有遗传数据汇集在一起，目的是开发一套更全面的分子标记，制定一个确定一套形态特征本体的工作流程和一种共享形态数据的手段，并制定一个评估物种边界和保护状况的一般范式。 计划行程将在西班牙安达卢西亚地区进行为期10天的收集之旅。 除了开发一些有形的成果，包括一套分子标记，用于蜘蛛生殖的大规模分析外，该项目的重大影响将涉及对学生（本科生、研究生和博士后）进行与系统学、生物多样性保护和进化生物学有关的概念问题的培训。

The purpose of this project is to catalyze a new set of collaborations and initiate a partnership with project PIs Jason Bond (Auburn University), Marshal Hedin (San Diego State University), and Brent Hendrixson (Millsaps College) and Miquel Arnedo, at the University of Barcelona in Spain. The project-planning trip to the Barcelona will bring together a group of investigators who have interests in the evolution, systematics, conservation, and taxonomy of mygalomorph spiders. The spider infraorder Mygalomorphae (trapdoor spiders, tarantulas, and their kin), are a biologically unique clade of early diverging spiders; many of its members are well known to non-arachnologists and include the world's largest (tarantulas), most venomous (Australian "funnel-web" spiders), and most long-lived spiders.The planning trip will focus on reviewing the status of mygalomorph classification to identify "problem" lineages, bring together all of the genetic data currently available with the aim of developing a more comprehensive set of molecular markers, develop a workflow for identifying a set of morphological character ontologies and a means by which to share morphological data, and formulate a general paradigm for evaluating species boundaries and conservation status. The planning trip will culminate in a 10-day collecting trip in the Andalusia region of Spain. In addition to developing a number of tangible outcomes to include a set of molecular markers for broad scale analyses of spider phylogeny, significant broader impacts of the project will involve training students (undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral) in conceptual issues related to systematics, biodiversity conservation and evolutionary biology.