Doctoral Dissertation Research: Reconstructing evolutionary relationships with dental microstructure

随着更多的化石被发现，更多的分类被识别，以及人类谱系显然表现出更大的物种多样性，开发新的方法来解释不同的原始人物种之间的关系变得更加关键。这一博士论文项目将研究如何利用牙齿内部微结构的特征来反映牙齿的发育，以更好地理解原始人的家谱。我们将分析各种现存灵长类动物的牙齿切片。该项目将支持研究生、本科生和K-12科学教育、培训和推广，包括针对STEM领域代表性不足的群体的个人。该项目的数据也将在网上提供。古人类学中一个长期存在的问题是，需要一种方法来恢复人类化石记录中的系统发育关系。现存的灵长类动物是了解人类进化变化和系统发育关系的重要比较资源。该项目的目标是(1)调查一组源自牙齿微结构的特征；(2)使用系统发育比较方法来确定牙齿微结构变量的实用性；以及(3)在分子系统学已建立良好的灵长类动物群体中测试这些变量。系统发育比较分析将有助于解决牙齿微结构特征携带系统发育信号的程度，从而有助于解决这些特征如何在系统发育背景下使用并应用于人类化石记录。

Developing new methods for interpreting how different hominin species are related to each other becomes even more critical as more fossils are uncovered, more taxa are recognized, and the human lineage apparently displays greater species diversity. This doctoral dissertation project will examine how dental development, reflected in features of the internal microstructure of teeth, might be used to better understand the hominin family tree. Tooth sections from a wide range of living primate species will be analyzed. The project will support graduate, undergraduate, and K-12 science education, training, and outreach, including for individuals from groups that are underrepresented in the STEM fields. Data from the project will also be made available online. A long-standing issue in paleoanthropology is the need for methods that can recover phylogenetic relationships in the hominin fossil record. Extant primates are an important comparative resource for understanding the evolutionary changes and phylogenetic relationships in the human lineage. The objectives of this project are to (1) investigate a set of traits derived from dental microstructure; (2) use phylogenetic comparative methods to determine the utility of dental microstructure variables; and (3) test these variables in an extant group of primates whose molecular phylogeny is well-established. The phylogenetic comparative analyses will help to address the extent to which dental microstructure traits carry a phylogenetic signal and therefore how these traits might be used in a phylogenetic context and applied to the hominin fossil record.