Doctoral Dissertation Research: Reconstructing evolutionary relationships with dental microstructure

随着更多的化石被发现，更多的分类群被识别，人类谱系显然显示出更大的物种多样性，开发新的方法来解释不同的人类物种之间的关系变得更加重要。这个博士论文项目将研究如何牙齿的发展，反映在牙齿的内部微观结构的特点，可能会被用来更好地了解人类的家谱。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，包括来自STEM领域代表性不足的团体的个人。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。现存灵长类动物是了解人类谱系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）调查一组来自牙齿微观结构的特征;（2）使用系统发育比较方法来确定牙齿微观结构变量的效用;（3）在现存的灵长类动物中测试这些变量，其分子系统发育是完善的。系统发育的比较分析将有助于解决在何种程度上牙齿的微观结构特征进行系统发育的信号，因此这些特征可能会被用于系统发育的背景下，并适用于人类化石记录。

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.