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

了解为什么某些生物群比其他生物群拥有更多的物种是进化生物学的一个长期目标。对于造成这种不均衡多样性的过程，一个提出的解释是进化性，即一些具有进化新形态的内在能力的谱系也具有更强的产生新物种的能力。带鳍鱼类占所有脊椎动物多样性的一半，有30,000个物种，其身体形式的阵列令人惊讶地不同。鱼类还被密集捕捞以供人类食用，这可能会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。这个项目的目的是通过博物馆收藏和众包来收集关于鱼的身体形状的数据，以检验进化性假说。研究人员将把博物馆收藏的大量生物多样性数字化，供公众和感兴趣的研究人员在线使用。这个项目将(1)建立最大的脊椎动物系统学，代表超过12,000个物种，(2)数字化三个博物馆的鱼类学收藏品，(3)收集最大的几何形态数据集，包括9,000多种鱼类的形状数据，(4)重建不同鱼种之间的差异，以及它们的身体形状进化速度如何随着时间的变化而变化。基于不同分支的进化差异，可以做出几个关键的宏观进化预测。进化程度越高的谱系应该具有更高的丰富度和多样性，并享有更多的表型差异和表型进化率。此外，享有快速表型进化的谱系也应该多样化，形成更多种类的生态位。

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.