EAGER: The evolution of cranial spines in sculpin fishes (superfamily Cottoidea)

许多脊椎动物群体都保护了它们的头骨，哺乳动物的角和角最吸引了进化生物学家的注意。这个项目通过将对动物武器的研究扩展到一种被称为雕刻鱼的未被探索的鱼类中来促进科学的进步。雕塑有大而多变的头棘。据推测，它们用它们来争夺配偶或保护自己不被捕食者吃掉。后者是假定的，但从未得到验证。这个项目将是第一个在水生系统中进行同类研究的项目，它将有助于确定刺的进化是否遵循在陆地系统中发现的相同规则和模式。该项目将通过提供许多教育经验造福社会，包括为研究生和本科生提供研究机会，为以前成功的培训研讨会提供新版本，以及利用动物武器的3D可视化来激发大学预科学生对生物学的兴趣的旅行课程。它还将通过公开和免费提供近1000个CT扫描鱼类标本的骨骼三维重建，开放科学数据的获取。由于其学科和方法的新颖结合，该项目有可能开创一种科学方法，可能成为新的社区标准。一个由鱼类学、比较系统发育分析、宏观进化、生物力学和3D形态计量学专家组成的团队将联合这些学科来发现为什么雕塑的头部具有令人印象深刻的可变眼前棘。这些鱼进化出武器来升级和加强雄性之间的竞争吗？或者，这些刺是为了保护它们的承担者免受缝隙有限的捕食者的吞噬？为了回答这个问题，该项目将连接150多个物种的微ct扫描，合成系统发育和功能特征多样性数据库，以重建这些鱼类的脊柱进化历史。此外，它将阐明这些鱼类在陆地系统中发现的颅骨附属物进化的一般规则。

Many vertebrate groups have protected their skulls, with the horns and antlers of mammals having attracted the most attention from evolutionary biologists. This project promotes the progress of science by expanding research on animal weaponry into an unexplored group of fishes called sculpins. Sculpins have large and variable head spines. It is assumed that they use them to fight and compete for mates or to defend themselves from being eaten by predators. The latter has been assumed, but never tested. This project will be first study of its kind in an aquatic system, and it will help determine whether the evolution of spines follows the same rules and patterns discovered in terrestrial systems. The project will benefit society by offering numerous educational experiences, including research opportunities to graduate and undergraduate students, a new version of a previously successful training workshop, and a travelling class that uses 3D visualization of animal weapons to excite precollege students about biology. It will also open access to scientific data by making 3D reconstructions of the skeleton of nearly 1000 CT scanned fish specimens publicly and freely available. Because of its novel combination of disciplines and methods, the project has the potential to pioneer a scientific approach that may become a new community standard. A team of experts in ichthyology, comparative phylogenetic analysis, macroevolution, biomechanics and 3D morphometrics will unite these disciplines to discover why the heads of sculpins bear impressively variable preopercular spines. Have these fishes evolved their weapons to escalate and enhance male-male competition? Or, do the spines defend their bearers from engulfment by gape-limited predators? To answer that question the project will link microCT scans of more than 150 species, synthetic phylogenies, and databases of functional trait diversity to reconstruct the history of spine evolution in these fishes. Further, it will shed light on the generality of rules governing the evolution of cranial appendages in these fishes follows those discovered in terrestrial systems.