EAPSI: The Anatomy and Evolutionary Relationships of Klamelisaurus Gobiensis and Other Sauropod Dinosaurs of the Middle and Late Jurassic of China

EAPSI：中国中侏罗世中晚期戈壁克拉梅龙与其他蜥脚类恐龙的解剖结构和进化关系

• 批准号: 1515288
• 负责人: Andrew Moore
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Moore Andrew J
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-06-01 至 2016-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1515288&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: EAPSI; Anatomy; Evolutionary; Relationships; Klamelisaurus

Sauropod dinosaurs are the largest terrestrial animals ever to have lived. The sauropod body plan--characterized by elongated necks, massive bodies, and air-filled bones--emerged in the Middle and Late Jurassic, some evolving neck lengths exceeding nine meters. It is not known how and why body forms evolve. So far, no fewer than twenty sauropods from the Middle and Late Jurassic of China were found. Yet most remain to be studied. Through collaboration with Dr. Xu Xing of the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology, an international authority on dinosaur evolution, this project will exhaustively document the anatomy of Klamelisaurus gobiensis, an understudied sauropod from the Middle-Late Jurassic of China. New anatomical data from Klamelisaurus and other Chinese sauropods will be used to produce a revised hypothesis of sauropod evolutionary relationships and illuminate the mechanisms by which long necks evolved.The holotype of Klamelisaurus gobiensis preserves a largely complete postcranial skeleton. The researcher will spend a significant portion of the EAPSI program producing a monographic anatomical description of Klamelisaurus. In addition, the researcher will reassess sauropod evolutionary relationships with a large morphological character matrix that includes numerous Chinese sauropods that have never been included in such an analysis, specifically addressing the hypothesis that Klamelisaurus is an early member of the exceptionally long-necked Omeisauridae. Phylogenetic analyses will be performed under both maximum parsimony and Bayesian posterior probability optimality criteria in the programs TNT and BEAST. The resulting evolutionary trees will be used to statistically test the likelihood of different evolutionary hypotheses regarding neck elongation, e.g., air space increases in anterior cervical vertebrae prior to the cervicalization of dorsal vertebrae. This NSF EAPSI award supports the research of a U.S. graduate student and is funded in collaboration with the Chinese Ministry of Science and Technology.

蜥脚类动物恐龙是有史以来最大的陆地动物。在侏罗纪的中间和晚期出现了由细长的脖子，巨大的身体和充气的骨头来表征的萨罗脚架身体计划，有些颈部长度超过9米。尚不知道身体如何以及为什么形成。 到目前为止，发现了来自中国中部和晚期侏罗纪的二十种蜥脚类动物。然而大多数仍有待研究。 通过与脊椎动物古生物学和古人类学研究所的Xu Xing博士的合作，这是恐龙进化的国际权威，该项目将详尽记录Klamelisaurus Gobiensis的解剖学，这是中国中年侏罗纪的研究。 Klamelisaurus和其他中国蜥脚类动物的新解剖数据将用于产生修订的蜥脚类动物进化关系的假设，并阐明了长颈进化的机制。Klamelisaurusgobiensis的整型。研究人员将花费大部分EAPSI计划，并对Klamelisaurus进行专着的解剖描述。此外，研究人员将与较大的形态特征矩阵重新评估蜥脚类动物的进化关系，该矩阵包括许多从未包含在这样的分析中的中国蜥脚类动物，特别解决了克拉梅尔龙是克莱姆利龙是异常长长的Omeisauridae的早期成员。系统发育分析将在TNT和BEAST程序中的最大简约和贝叶斯后概率最佳标准下进行。所得的进化树将用于从统计上测试有关颈部伸长的不同进化假设的可能性，例如，前颈椎前颈椎的空气空间在颈椎椎骨之前增加。该NSF EAPSI奖支持美国研究生的研究，并与中国科学技术部合作。