DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Testing macroevolutionary predictions of diversity and disparity in the ray-finned fishes

理解为什么某些生物群体比其他生物群体拥有更多的物种是进化生物学的一个长期目标。对于造成这种不平衡的多样性的过程，一种被提出的解释是可进化性，即一些具有进化新形态的内在能力的谱系也具有产生新物种的能力。鳐鱼有3万种，占所有脊椎动物多样性的一半，它们的身体形态却惊人地不同。鱼类也被集中捕捞供人类消费，这可能对其多样性及其作为生态角色和人类食物来源的能力造成重大影响。该项目旨在通过博物馆收藏和众包收集鱼类体型数据来测试可进化性假说。研究人员将对博物馆收藏的大量生物多样性进行数字化处理，并提供给公众和感兴趣的研究人员使用。该项目将(1)建立最大的脊椎动物系统发育，包括超过12,000种物种；(2)对三个博物馆的鱼类学藏品进行数字化；(3)收集最大的几何形态测量数据集，包括超过9,000种鱼类的形状数据；(4)重建不同鱼类谱系之间的差异，以及它们的体型进化速度如何随时间变化。几个关键的宏观进化预测可以基于不同进化枝的不同进化能力。更多的可进化谱系应该具有更高的丰富度和多样化率，并且具有更高的表型差异和表型进化率。此外，享受快速表型进化的谱系也应该多样化到更多种类的生态位。

Understanding why some groups of organisms have more species than other groups of organisms is a long-standing goal in evolutionary biology. One proposed explanation for the process that creates this uneven diversity is evolvability, the idea that some lineages that have the intrinsic ability to evolve novel morphologies also have an increased ability to generate new species. Ray-finned fishes, representing half of all vertebrate diversity with 30,000 species, have an astonishingly disparate array of body forms. Fishes are also intensively harvested for human consumption, potentially leading to major impacts on their diversity and their ability to serve both as ecological role players and as a human food source. This project will aim to test the evolvability hypothesis by collecting data on fish body shape using museum collections and crowdsourcing. The researchers will digitize a vast store of biodiversity in museum collections to be made available online, for use by the public and interested researchers.This project will (1) build the largest phylogeny of vertebrates, with over 12,000 species represented, (2) digitize ichthyology collections at three museums, (3) collect the largest geometric morphometric dataset, consisting of shape data for over 9,000 species of fishes, and (4) reconstruct the disparity among different fish lineages, and how their rates of body shape evolution have changed over time. Several key macroevolutionary predictions can be made based on differential evolvability across clades. More evolvable lineages should have higher richness and diversification rates, and enjoy more phenotypic disparity and rates of phenotypic evolution. Additionally, lineages that enjoy fast phenotypic evolution should also diversify into a larger variety of ecological niches.