Collaborative Research: Rates of lineage, phenotypic, and genomic diversification in replicated radiations of murine rodents

许多生命的多样性是通过适应性辐射的过程产生的。当一个群体迅速分化成许多物种以填补各种生态角色时，适应性辐射就发生了。虽然适应性辐射是生命进化的一个共同主题，但它的许多特征却鲜为人知。该项目旨在更好地了解适应性辐射是如何进行的。该项目将研究一组包含600多个物种的啮齿动物在进化史上的基因、形态和物种多样性的多样化速度。这项研究将确定随着物种多样化，基因、形态和物种的变化是如何相互关联的。重要的是，正在研究的群体包括常见的实验室小鼠和大鼠，这两个物种在医学和基础研究中充当科学模型。这项研究将把这些模式生物放在进化的背景下，这将使科学家更好地了解它们的基因和其他特征是如何进化的。这种认识提供了对基因和医学意义特征的新见解。由研究人员组织的科学会议将把从不同角度（包括分子生物学和医学）研究小鼠和大鼠的科学家聚集在一起，分享见解并产生新的研究问题。除了对基础科学和医学产生更广泛的影响外，参与自然历史博物馆的公共宣传和教育活动将利用这项研究的结果向K-12学生教授进化生物学原理，并提高公众对科学的理解。该项目将比较基因组学与定量形态学在严格的系统发育框架中结合起来，阐明了哺乳动物中最丰富的物种适应性辐射的谱系、表型和基因多样化的动态。大鼠和小鼠（鼠亚科，634种现存物种）的特殊物种和生态形态多样性在过去的1400万年中通过复制适应性辐射出现，主要是在印度-澳大利亚独特的生物地理单位中。本研究将扩展主要哺乳动物模式生物的基因组资源，通过对大的、系统发育上分散的一组物种的全外显子组进行测序，以涵盖小鼠啮齿类动物的多样性。此外，该项目将生成来自同一物种的颅骨和颅骨后骨骼的高分辨率3D形态测量模型。该项目将把这些不同的数据层结合起来：估计Murinae物种水平的系统发育；确定和确定生物地理和生态转变的日期；估计整个系统发育的多样化率变化；估计表型和分子进化相对于过渡（生物地理和生态）和谱系多样化率的变化的速率；表型速度与分子进化的相关性检验；并且，量化形态和分子趋同。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Much of the diversity of life has arisen through the process of adaptive radiation. Adaptive radiation occurs when a group rapidly diversifies into many species to fill a variety of ecological roles. While adaptive radiation is a common theme in the evolution of life, many of its features are poorly understood. This project seeks to better understand how adaptive radiation proceeds. The project will examine the rate of diversification in genes, morphology and species diversity over the evolutionary history of a group of rodents containing more than 600 species. The study will determine how changes in genes, morphology and species are correlated as the species diversified. Importantly, the group under study contains the common lab mouse and rat, two species that serve as scientific models in medical and basic research. This study will place these model organisms in an evolutionary context that will allow scientists to better understand how their genes and other characteristics have evolved. Such understanding provides new insight into genes and characteristics of medical significance. Scientific meetings organized by the researchers will bring together scientists who study mice and rats from different perspectives, including molecular biology and medicine, to share insight and generate new research questions. In addition to the broader impacts on basic science and medicine, public outreach and education events at participating natural history museums will use the results of this research to teach principles of evolutionary biology to K-12 students and improve public understanding of science.This project integrates comparative genomics with quantitative morphology in a rigorous phylogenetic framework to illuminate the dynamics of diversification in lineages, phenotypes, and genes across the most species-rich adaptive radiation in mammals. The exceptional species and ecomorphological diversity in rats and mice (subfamily Murinae, 634 living species) arose over the last 14 million years through replicate adaptive radiations, primarily in the distinct biogeographic units of Indo-Australia. This research will expand on the genomic resources from the leading mammalian model organisms to encompass the diversity of murine rodents by sequencing whole exomes from a large, phylogenetically dispersed set of species. In addition, the project will generate high-resolution, 3D morphometric models of cranial and post-cranial skeletons from the same species. The project will combine these distinct data layers to: estimate a species-level phylogeny of the Murinae; identify and date biogeographic and ecological transitions; estimate diversification rate shifts across the phylogeny; estimate rates of phenotypic and molecular evolution relative to transitions (biogeographic and ecological) and shifts in lineage diversification rate; test for correlations between the tempos of phenotypic and molecular evolution; and, quantify morphological and molecular convergence.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.