The role of cranial biomechanics and feeding in clade diversification and early dinosaur evolution

颅骨生物力学和摄食在进化枝多样化和早期恐龙进化中的作用

• 批准号: NE/R000077/1
• 负责人: Paul Barrett
• 金额: $ 50.73万
• 依托单位: Natural History Museum
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2018 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FR000077%2F1
• 关键词: role; cranial; biomechanics; feeding; clade

Novel anatomical adaptations and mechanisms for feeding are often postulated as 'key innovations' that spark the diversification of major clades. However, the mechanics of these adaptations are rarely quantitatively or rigorously tested, seriously undermining the validity of these hypotheses. Moreover, the majority of biomechanical analyses are carried out on single exemplar organisms, whereas a comparative phylogenetic context is critical to understanding the impact of feeding on evolutionary history and testing macroevolutionary hypotheses. Dinosaurs dominated terrestrial ecosystems for >130 million years, exhibiting a tremendous range of body sizes, shapes and ecologies. The earliest dinosaurs and their ancestors were generalists and minor faunal components. Dramatic increases in body size, diversity and abundance occurred during the Late Triassic-Early Jurassic (230-180 million years ago), and various factors have been implicated in dinosaur success. It is thought that the appearance of novel feeding adaptations permitted ecological diversification. However, this engaging 'functional story' has not been tested in a quantitative, hypothesis-driven comparative framework and previous work has focused on derived dinosaur taxa with extreme morphologies (e.g., Tyrannosaurus, Diplodocus), ignoring forms close to the base of Dinosauria. For these reasons, dinosaurs are an ideal model system for integrating data on feeding biomechanics with phylogeny, allowing more rigorous investigation of the relationship between functional diversity and clade dynamics. In this project we aim to comprehensively understand the consequences of functional changes in dinosaur skull biomechanics during the origin and early evolution of dinosaurs, a key moment in life's history. The proposed project is particularly timely given the availability and integration of cutting-edge computational methods for biomechanical analyses and new discoveries of early dinosaurs and their ancestors.We will integrate principles and methods from palaeontology, biology and engineering to reconstruct skull anatomy and function in 15 early dinosaur and dinosauriform taxa. CT scans and visualization software will be used to create 3D computer models. Information from the original fossils and living crocodilians, birds and lizards will be used to reconstruct head musculature. Using these reconstructions and multi-body dynamics analysis, we will model jaw motions during feeding, estimate bite forces along the tooth row and calculate maximum jaw closing speed. We will integrate results from dynamic models with finite element analysis and geometric morphometrics to test how the skulls respond to feeding-induced loads. In addition, we will run simulations on three living species to ensure model predictions are accurate. Results from these analyses will provide evidence for the jaw function and potential diet of early dinosaurs, and whether they became more specialized in terms of feeding performance during their evolution. Finally, we will compare the appearance of feeding characters to dinosaur diversity patterns to determine what role feeding had in their early evolution and success. Palaeontologists, anatomists, biomechanists, evolutionary biologists and engineers will benefit from this work, which will set new benchmarks for performing evolutionary biomechanics in living and fossil animals and will establish new UK, European and overseas collaborations. This project will also generate new methodological advances that can be applied to other clades and other functional questions. Finally, the technological and visual aspects of this work and its focus on early dinosaurs will appeal to the general public, offering numerous engagement opportunities and media interest that will contribute to increased public understanding of scientific principles and methods, and will ensure wide dissemination of this work.

新颖的解剖适应和摄食机制经常被认为是激发主要支系多样化的关键创新。然而，这些适应的机制很少得到定量或严格的测试，严重破坏了这些假设的有效性。此外，大多数生物力学分析都是在单个样本生物体上进行的，而比较的系统发育背景对于理解摄食对进化史的影响和检验宏观进化假说至关重要。恐龙统治陆地生态系统达1.3亿年之久，它们的体型、体型和生态环境千差万别。最早的恐龙及其祖先是多面手和次要的动物群成员。在晚三叠世-早侏罗世(2.3亿-1.8亿年前)，恐龙的体型、多样性和丰度都出现了戏剧性的增长，各种因素都与恐龙的成功有关。人们认为，新的摄食适应方式的出现允许了生态多样性。然而，这个引人入胜的“功能故事”还没有在量化的、假设驱动的比较框架中进行测试，以前的工作主要集中在衍生出的具有极端形态(例如暴龙、梁龙)的恐龙类群上，而忽略了接近恐龙底部的形态。出于这些原因，恐龙是一个理想的模型系统，可以将喂养生物力学的数据与系统发育相结合，从而能够更严格地研究功能多样性和分支动力学之间的关系。在这个项目中，我们的目标是全面了解恐龙起源和早期进化过程中恐龙头骨生物力学功能变化的后果，这是生命史上的一个关键时刻。考虑到生物力学分析的尖端计算方法的可用性和集成，以及早期恐龙及其祖先的新发现，拟议的项目尤其及时。我们将整合古生物学、生物学和工程学的原理和方法，重建15个早期恐龙和恐龙类群的头骨解剖和功能。将使用CT扫描和可视化软件来创建3D计算机模型。来自原始化石和活的鳄鱼、鸟类和蜥蜴的信息将被用于重建头部肌肉结构。使用这些重建和多体动力学分析，我们将对进食过程中的颌骨运动进行建模，估计沿牙齿排的咬合力，并计算最大颌骨关闭速度。我们将把动态模型的结果与有限元分析和几何形态计量学相结合，以测试头骨对摄食诱导负荷的反应。此外，我们将对三个活着的物种进行模拟，以确保模型预测的准确性。这些分析的结果将为早期恐龙的颌骨功能和潜在的饮食提供证据，以及它们在进化过程中是否在进食性能方面变得更加专业化。最后，我们将比较进食角色的外观和恐龙的多样性模式，以确定进食在它们早期的进化和成功中起到了什么作用。古生物学家、解剖学家、生物机械学家、进化生物学家和工程师将从这项工作中受益，这将为在活动物和化石动物中执行进化生物力学设定新的基准，并将建立新的英国、欧洲和海外合作。该项目还将产生新的方法进步，可应用于其他分支和其他功能问题。最后，这项工作的技术和视觉方面及其对早期恐龙的关注将吸引普通公众，提供大量参与机会和媒体兴趣，这将有助于增进公众对科学原则和方法的理解，并将确保这项工作的广泛传播。

项目成果

Additional file 1: of Digital dissection of the head of the rock dove (Columba livia) using contrast-enhanced computed tomography

附加文件 1：使用对比增强计算机断层扫描对岩鸠 (Columba livia) 头部进行数字解剖

• DOI: 10.6084/m9.figshare.8252711
• 发表时间: 2019
• 作者: Jones M