Virtual Palaeontology of Chengjiang Arthropods

自寒武纪早期以来，节肢动物一直是地球上最丰富的动物群体。对这些特殊保存的澄江节肢动物化石的研究将极大地提高我们对节肢动物早期进化和生存策略的认识。然而，这些早期代表的进化关系和系统发育仍然存在很大争议。这部分是因为进化论者/系统发育学家从化石标本中提取的编码信息有限。化石数量、保存质量和可视化技术的限制一直在发挥作用。在本项目中，我们将应用先进的可视化技术对澄江节肢动物化石进行（重新）研究。其中包括Micro-CT，从石板内部提取以前未知的信息，荧光显微镜和扫描电镜，从石板表面揭示以前看不见的信息，以及光谱分析化石的化学成分。在此基础上，我们将能够解决一些长期存在的问题，如节肢动物头部问题和节肢动物系统发育问题。

Arthropods have been representing the most abundant animal group on the earth since the early Cambrian. Studies on the exceptionally preserved Chengjiang arthropod fossils will largely improve our understandings of the early evolution and survival strategies of the arthropods. However, the evolutionary relations and the phylogeny of those early representatives still remain highly controversial. This is partly because of the limited coding information that evolutionists/phylogenists could extract from the fossil specimens. Limitations in the number of fossils, quality of preservation and visualization techniques have been playing a role in this. In the present project, we will be applying advanced visualization techniques to (re)study the Chengjiang arthropod fossils. These include Micro-CT to extract previously unknown information from the inside of the slabs, fluorescent microscopy and SEM to reveal previously invisible information from the the surface of the slabs, and spectroscopy to analyze chemical components of the fossils. Based on these, we will be able to solve some of the long-existing problems such as the Arthropod Head Problem and Arthropod Phylogeny.