Dispersal, diversity and survival: lessons from the fossil record

扩散、多样性和生存：化石记录的教训

• 批准号: DE140101879
• 负责人: Dr Graeme Lloyd
• 金额: $ 16.54万
• 依托单位: Macquarie University
• 依托单位国家: 澳大利亚
• 项目类别: Discovery Early Career Researcher Award
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 澳大利亚
• 起止时间: 2014-09-01 至 2016-10-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://dataportal.arc.gov.au/RGS/Web/Grants/DE140101879
• 关键词: Dispersal; diversity; survival; lessons; fossil

The ability of organisms to spread their genes may be key to their long-term survival. For example, birds survived the mass extinction of 65 million years ago, but their non-flying dinosaurian relatives did not. This project will use the fossil record to establish whether swimming or flying are key traits in long-term survival. This will be done by producing the first family tree for all extinct terrestrial vertebrates onto which geographic data will be mapped before a novel computational analysis shows how species moved between continents over the last 400 million years. The results may inform modern conservation issues, as changing climate means an organism's survival could be dependent on its ability to physically track shifting environments.

生物体传播基因的能力可能是它们长期生存的关键。例如，鸟类在6500万年前的大规模灭绝中幸存下来，但它们的非飞行鸟类亲戚却没有。该项目将使用化石记录来确定游泳或飞行是否是长期生存的关键特征。这将通过为所有灭绝的陆生脊椎动物制作第一个家谱来完成，在一个新的计算分析显示物种在过去4亿年中如何在大陆之间移动之前，地理数据将被映射到家谱上。这些结果可能会为现代保护问题提供信息，因为气候变化意味着生物体的生存可能取决于其物理跟踪变化环境的能力。