Evolutionary and developmental drivers of phenotypic variation

表型变异的进化和发育驱动因素

• 批准号: RGPIN-2022-04370
• 负责人: Larsson, Hans
• 金额: $ 2.4万
• 依托单位: McGill University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2022-01-01 至 2023-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=764496
• 关键词: Evolutionary; developmental; drivers; phenotypic; variation

This research program will examine the developmental and evolutionary biology of the vertebrate skeleton across large scale evolutionary change. The primary goal is to create a foundation of rigorous anatomical characterization to transition from the current descriptive and labour-intensive methods used by evolutionary biologists to one that can expand with new developmental and functional information and be easily translated from one taxonomic group to the next. This transition is necessary to continue scaling up research on anatomical evolution and development. Specifically, it will explore the interplay between developmental and evolutionary variation in the skeleton of Archosauria, a group of animals that includes the last common ancestor of crocodiles and birds, a diverse radiation throughout the Mesozoic Era that include dinosaurs, and the living radiations of crocodiles and birds. This radiation began about 250 million years ago and records many large-scale evolutionary transitions, including the origin of birds. A set of complimentary projects are designed to bridge a broad interdisciplinary program that researches a spectrum including developmental biology, comparative anatomy, biological imaging, and quantitative phenomics. The first phase of projects will assemble a comprehensive anatomical database of skeletal variation in Archosauria. This will be done by assembling current and novel anatomical characters. Surface scans of selected specimens will also be used to examine how shape changes correspond with discrete anatomical changes. An underlying goal of this program is to move the study of anatomical evolution on par with the sophisticated methods studying molecular evolution. This will be done by creating novel methods to code anatomical characters using an emerging concept of anatomical ontologies. This method incorporates biological processes of development and function to create more sophisticated anatomical character sets. The second phase will examine how developmental processes are acting on `hotspots' of anatomical change identified in the previous phase. This work will test how tissue-level developmental changes influence the evolution of anatomy. This research will derive a working model of skeletal development and evolution. The results will have application to our understanding of how biological systems evolve and how developmental biology influences large scale evolutionary change. Other applications are the development of an efficient work flow for imaging, quantifying, and comparing anatomical data. This has enormous implications for objectively estimating evolutionary relationships, describing developmental variation, and biological imaging.

该研究计划将研究脊椎动物骨骼在大规模进化变化中的发育和进化生物学。主要目标是为进化生物学家使用的当前描述性和劳动密集型方法过渡到可以通过新的发展和功能性信息扩展，并轻松地将一种分类组转化为下一个。继续扩展对解剖学进化和发展的研究。具体而言，它将探讨Archosauria骨骼的发育和进化变化之间的相互作用，Archosauria是一组动物，其中包括最后一个共同的鳄鱼和鸟类的共同祖先，这是整个中生代时代的多样性辐射，包括恐龙，包括恐龙，以及鳄鱼和鸟类的活辐射。这种辐射始于大约2.5亿年前，记录了许多大规模进化过渡，包括鸟类的起源。一组免费项目旨在桥接一个广泛的跨学科计划，该计划研究了包括发育生物学，比较解剖学，生物成像和定量现象学的频谱。项目的第一阶段将组装一个全面的骨骼骨骼变异的解剖数据库。这将通过组装当前和新颖的解剖特征来完成。所选标本的表面扫描也将用于检查形状变化如何与离散解剖变化相对应。该程序的一个根本目标是与研究分子进化的复杂方法相提并论的解剖学进化研究。这将通过创建新颖的方法来使用新兴的解剖本体概念来编码解剖学特征来完成。该方法结合了开发和功能的生物学过程，以创建更复杂的解剖特征集。第二阶段将研究开发过程如何在上一阶段确定的解剖变化的“热点”上作用。这项工作将测试组织水平的发育变化如何影响解剖学的演变。这项研究将得出骨骼发育和进化的工作模型。结果将应用我们对生物系统如何发展以及发育生物学如何影响大规模进化变化的理解。其他应用程序是开发有效的工作流，用于成像，量化和比较解剖学数据。这对客观估计进化关系，描述发育变化和生物成像具有巨大的影响。