DISSERTATION RESEARCH: A synthetic analysis of evolutionary patterns in the Squamate family Cordylidae

自达尔文以来，适应辐射（一个物种迅速分化为几个物种，每个物种都专门适应一个特定的环境生态位）的过程一直是进化生物学中一个激烈争论的方面。最近的方法，分析生态学，形态学和进化历史的相关性，使我们能够研究适应辐射的定量和统计框架。环带蜥蜴（Cordylidae科）是来自撒哈拉以南非洲的一个独特的装甲蜥蜴家族，具有多种形态、生活史和行为，使它们成为研究适应性特征进化的理想系统。这个项目将联合收割机的DNA和形态数据恢复所有80个成员的Cordylidae的进化关系。然后，一系列化石将被用来恢复关键祖先的年龄，并利用最先进的计算机断层扫描（CT）进行全面的抽样分析，将结合新开发的技术来分析形态和生态变化的模式和过程。这项研究的结果将通过美国自然历史博物馆的活动和博物馆的网站向公众传达。 该项目还将帮助博物馆发展数字收藏，所有扫描标本的三维模型将免费提供下载。该项目将促进美国和非洲科学家之间的合作，并将在一系列CT成像技术方面对本科生和高中生进行培训。

The process of adaptive radiation (the rapid diversification of one species into several species that are each specialized to a specific environmental niche) has been an intensely debated aspect of evolutionary biology since Darwin. Recent methods that analyze the correlation of ecology, morphology and evolutionary history allow us to study adaptive radiations in a quantitative and statistical framework. The girdled lizards (family Cordylidae) are a family of distinctively armored lizards from sub-Saharan Africa that encompass a wide variety of morphologies, life histories and behaviors, making them an ideal system to investigate the evolution of adaptive traits. This project will combine DNA and morphological data to recover the evolutionary relationships of all 80 members of the Cordylidae. A series of fossils will then be used to recover the age of key ancestors, and a comprehensively sampled analysis utilizing state-of-the-art computed tomography (CT) will be combined with newly developed techniques to analyze patterns and processes of morphological and ecological variation. The findings of this research will be communicated to the public via events at the American Museum of Natural History and through the Museum's website. This project will also help develop the Museum's digital collection, with three-dimensional models of all the scanned specimens to be made freely available for download. This project will facilitate collaborations between U.S. and African scientists and will train undergraduates and high-school students in a series of CT imaging techniques.