Collaborative Research: Reassessing Primate Origins through Digital Investigation of Eocene Fossils from the Bridger Basin, Wyoming

合作研究：通过对怀俄明州布里杰盆地始新世化石的数字调查重新评估灵长类动物起源

• 批准号: 1440742
• 负责人: Douglas Boyer
• 金额: $ 18.34万
• 依托单位: Duke University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-09-15 至 2018-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1440742&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Reassessing; Primate; Origins

Fossil skeletons of the first primates are extraordinarily rare, limiting our understanding of their ecology, anatomy, and evolution. Despite their rarity and central importance to understanding the initial steps in the biological radiation that ultimately includes humans, the most completely known skeletons from North America remain uncollected and unstudied, with museum specimens largely still entombed in rock and in need of preparation. To address this problem, the research team will 'virtually' extract the most complete primate skeletons yet known from the Eocene (48 million years old) of North America using 3D imaging technology for museum samples and newly collected specimens from the Bridger Basin, Wyoming. These three-dimensional images provide uniquely informative quantitative morphometric data that will be analyzed in the context of a massive comparative 3D digital dataset of fossil and extant primate specimens, utilizing sophisticated statistical and mathematical techniques. While it is generally accepted that these early primates were most similar to the lemurs of Madagascar among living primates, preliminary analyses have begun to suggest that this perspective is not entirely accurate. Because of their completeness, Bridger skeletons provide evidence allowing critical tests of these ideas, transforming understanding of early primate evolution through detailed analyses of their anatomy in evolutionary context. Additionally, new evidence on the anatomy of early primates will allow tests of competing phylogenetic hypotheses about whether these Eocene primates are more closely related to anthropoids (monkeys, apes, and humans), strepsirrhines (lemurs, lorises, and galagos), or perhaps represent a more primitive branch of the primate tree. Finally, Bridger skeletons will provide the first detailed characterization of locomotor and positional behavior in these specimens, clarifying this aspect of the adaptive context for the origin and early evolution of primates. Examining the anatomy of the new skeletons in evolutionary context will test the idea that several early primate lineages may have independently evolved specialized acrobatic leaping, previously considered to be a uniting characteristic of primates.This project includes the involvement of five undergraduate students; a postdoctoral scholar; hosting of lab and field workshops involving K-12 educators, fossil clubs, and local museums; and posting of digital atlases of skeletons on a publicly accessible website (www.morphosource.org). MorphoSource allows both researchers and the public to study every detail of each skeleton (including in situ bone positions) processed by the investigators. A digital atlas of 3D data and other related images will be published, providing both improved archival documentation and enhancing participation by all interested individuals in the discovery process. In this aspect, the project can be seen as a model for future research in its transparency through exhaustive, open-access documentation of research materials.

第一批灵长类动物的化石骨骼非常罕见，限制了我们对它们的生态学、解剖学和进化的理解。尽管它们的稀有性和核心重要性，以了解生物辐射的初始步骤，最终包括人类，最完整的已知骨骼来自北美仍然没有收集和研究，博物馆标本大部分仍然埋在岩石中，需要准备。为了解决这个问题，研究小组将使用3D成像技术从博物馆样本和怀俄明州布里杰盆地新收集的标本中“虚拟”提取北美始新世（4800万年前）已知的最完整的灵长类动物骨骼。 这些三维图像提供了独特的信息定量形态测量数据，将在化石和现存灵长类动物标本的大量比较3D数字数据集的背景下进行分析，利用复杂的统计和数学技术。虽然人们普遍认为这些早期灵长类动物与现存灵长类动物中马达加斯加的狐猴最相似，但初步分析开始表明这种观点并不完全准确。由于它们的完整性，布里杰骨骼提供了证据，允许这些想法的关键测试，通过在进化背景下详细分析它们的解剖结构，改变了对早期灵长类进化的理解。 此外，关于早期灵长类动物解剖学的新证据将允许测试这些始新世灵长类动物是否与灵长类动物（猴子、猿和人类）、链鼻猴（狐猴、懒猴和加拉戈斯）更接近，或者可能代表灵长类动物树的一个更原始的分支。 最后，布里杰的骨骼将提供这些标本中运动和位置行为的第一个详细表征，澄清灵长类动物起源和早期进化的适应性背景的这一方面。 在进化背景下研究新骨骼的解剖结构将测试几个早期灵长类谱系可能独立进化出专门的杂技跳跃的想法，以前被认为是灵长类动物的一个统一特征。该项目包括五名本科生的参与;一名博士后学者;举办实验室和实地研讨会，涉及K-12教育工作者，化石俱乐部和当地博物馆;并在一个可公开访问的网站（www.example.com）上张贴数字化的骨骼地图集www.morphosource.org。 MorphoSource允许研究人员和公众研究研究人员处理的每个骨骼的每个细节（包括原位骨骼位置）。将出版三维数据和其他相关图像的数字地图集，提供更好的档案文件，并促进所有感兴趣的个人参与发现过程。在这方面，该项目可以被视为未来研究的一个典范，因为它通过详尽的、开放获取的研究材料文件而具有透明度。