Collaborative Research: Origins and drivers of extinction of Caribbean Avifauna

合作研究：加勒比鸟类灭绝的起源和驱动因素

• 批准号: 2033905
• 负责人: Robert Guralnick
• 金额: $ 27.89万
• 依托单位: University of Florida
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2021
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2021-02-01 至 2025-01-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2033905&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Origins; drivers; extinction

Current vertebrate diversity has been dramatically shaped by an ongoing mass extinction event that began after the last ice age ended, approximately 18,000 years ago. The timing of at least some of these extinctions often coincides with human arrival into newly colonized areas. While extinctions since the last ice age have occurred worldwide, the islands that make up the Caribbean have been perhaps the single hardest hit region. This island system, rich in well-preserved paleontological and archaeological sites, has preserved a spectacular record of both past bird diversity and human occupation. Still, our knowledge of the patterns, causes, and consequences of long-term changes to Caribbean bird communities remains surprisingly limited. This knowledge gap hampers our understanding of past diversity changes and its causes, and thus our ability to manage and conserve remaining diversity into the future. This research focuses on closing these knowledge gaps using DNA from fossils (ancient DNA) to understand taxonomic affinities of extinct species, and radiocarbon dating to determine the last occurrence of a species. This approach provides critical information to determine who these species were, and to time their losses in relation to climate change and waves of human arrivals to the islands. This project also focuses on the characteristics of species that have made them more vulnerable to extinction (for example, flightlessness) as a means to more completely understand the causes of extinction in the past and forecast the extinction risk for existing species. This project has broad societal impact through its educational and outreach components. The project will provide training for underrepresented students in science, focusing on extinction and ancient DNA, and develop classroom content for K-12 classes in Florida in partnership with the University of Florida Thomson Earth Science Institute’s (TESI) Scientist in Every Florida School (SEFS) program. And to further public understanding of science, and to bolster conservation efforts for threatened Caribbean birds, the researchers will develop a documentary video in both English and Spanish and work with museum-based outreach efforts to inform wide audiences across the Caribbean islands.It is estimated that 12% of the bird species in the Caribbean either went extinct or were extirpated since the late Pleistocene, with many more now considered to be endangered or threatened. Less well understood is the role humans have played in these extinctions and population losses. Because human arrival to these islands occurred much later than on the mainland, archeological and paleontological evidence can be used to determine how humans interacted with the local fauna upon their arrival to domesticate, translocate, and cause the extinction of some species. Evidence of this lost avian diversity is fragmentary, often represented by only a few specimens with limited morphological characters. This causes challenges for proper phylogenetic placement, especially given potential for convergence due to shared life histories such as flightlessness. In this project researchers will build phylogenetic trees of clades of birds including modern, extinct and extirpated taxa to determine the phylogenetic and trait affinities of these species. This work will also elucidate biogeographic patterns of the full endemic fauna of the Caribbean, that has been obscured due to extinctions of enigmatic taxa, and build a picture of the level of biodiversity loss in terms of phylogenetic and trait diversity. A key next step is to then integrate new phylogenetic knowledge into a larger context of overall avian diversity patterns to explicitly quantify past loss of phylogenetic diversity across the Caribbean. We will generate a new metric, diversity loss risk, that integrates insight from phylogenetics, traits, and past extinction events to reveal which extant species are of greatest concern for preventing permanent phylogenetic diversity loss.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.

当前的脊椎动物多样性受到了一个持续的质量扩展事件的巨大影响，该事件在最后一个冰河时代结束后（大约18，000年前）开始。至少其中一些扩展的时间通常与人类到达新殖民区域相吻合。虽然自上次冰河时代发生以来的扩展是在全球范围内发生的，但构成加勒比海的岛屿可能是最难的命中率。这个岛屿系统富含保存完好的古生物学和存档的地点，保留了过去鸟类多样性和人类占领的壮观记录。尽管如此，我们对加勒比海鸟类社区的长期变化的模式，原因和后果的了解仍然令人惊讶地受到限制。这些知识差距妨碍了我们对过去多样性及其原因的理解，因此我们管理和保护未来的多样性的能力。这项研究重点是使用化石（古代DNA）的DNA缩小这些知识差距，以了解灭绝物种的分类亲和力，并可以确定一种物种的最后发生。这种方法提供了关键信息来确定这些物种是谁，并计时它们与气候变化和人类到达岛的浪潮有关。该项目还着重于使它们更容易受到扩展（例如，无飞行性）的特征，以此可以更完全理解过去的扩展原因并预测现有物种的扩展风险。该项目通过其教育和外展成分产生了广泛的社会影响。该项目将为科学的代表性不足的学生提供培训，专注于扩展和古老的DNA，并与佛罗里达大学汤姆森地球科学学院（TESI）的科学家（SEFS）计划合作，为佛罗里达的K-12课程开发课堂内容。 And to further public understanding of science, and to bolster conservation efforts for threatened Caribbean birds, the researchers will develop a documentary video in both English and Spanish and work with museum-based outreach efforts to inform wide audiences across the Caribbean islands.It is estimated that 12% of the bird species in the Caribbean either went extinct or were Extirpated since the late Pleistocene, with many more now considered to be endangered or threatened.不太了解的是，人类在这些扩展和人口损失中所扮演的角色。由于人类到达这些岛屿的发生比大陆的时间要晚得多，因此可以使用考古和古生物学证据来确定人类在到达驯化，转运和引起某些物种扩展时与当地动物群体相互作用。这种失去的鸟类多样性的证据是碎片性的，通常仅由几种形态特征有限的物种表示。这导致了适当的系统发育放置的挑战，尤其是由于共享的生活历史（如无飞行）而引起的收敛潜力。在这个项目中，研究人员将建造鸟类进化枝的系统发育树，包括现代，灭绝和消除的分类单元，以确定这些物种的系统发育和性状亲和力。这项工作还将阐明加勒比海全部群体动物群的生物地理模式，由于神秘分类单元的灭绝而被掩盖了，并建立了生物多样性损失水平，以系统发生和性状多样性的范围。下一步的关键是将新的系统发育知识纳入更大的整体鸟类多样性模式的背景，以明确量化整个加勒比海系统发育多样性的过去丧失。我们将产生一种新的指标，多样性损失风险，该风险从系统发育，特征和过去的扩展事件中融为一体，以揭示哪些扩展物种是防止永久性系统发育多样性损失的最大关注，这反映了NSF的法定任务，并认为通过基金会的知识优点和广泛的criperia criperia criperia criperia crigitia the Issportuation通过评估来获得珍贵的支持。

项目成果

Changes in parrot diversity after human arrival to the Caribbean

• DOI: 10.1073/pnas.2301128120
• 发表时间: 2023-10-10
• 期刊: PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
• 影响因子: 11.1
• 作者: Oswald，Jessica A.;Smith，Brian Tilston;LeFebvre，Michelle J.
• 通讯作者: LeFebvre，Michelle J.