中晚侏罗世近鸟龙类个体生长发育研究及鸟类起源

近鸟龙类恐龙（Anchiornithidae）是主要发现于中国东北中晚侏罗世“燕辽生物群”的一类小型带羽毛手盗龙类恐龙。最新研究表明，手盗龙类恐龙向鸟类的最初分化很可能发生在中侏罗世中晚期的东亚，近鸟龙类很可能是这一最初分化事件的产物，因此该类群研究对于理解鸟类起源至关重要。目前，对该类群的研究主要集中在地层年代、形态分类、系统演化、羽毛颜色等方面，但对个体生长发育等研究尚属空白，然而这方面研究对于深入了解该类群分类学以及恐龙-鸟类转化中恐龙生物学特征的演化具有重要意义。本项目拟从形态测量学和骨组织学两方面对该类群的个体生长发育进行研究，通过对处于不同生长阶段个体的长骨外部形态、内部组织结构的定性、定量测定和数据的多变量分析等，理解个体生长模式和肢骨生长策略，探讨可能反映的生态学意义以及恐龙-鸟类转化初始期重要生物学特征的演化。基于上述研究，解决目前该类群形态分类研究中存在的争议。

Anchiornithidae is a group of small feathered maniraptoran dinosaurs mainly known from the Middle-Late Jurassic "Yanliao Biota" in northeast China. Recent studies suggested an explosive radiation of maniraptoran dinosaurs in East Asia in the late Middle Jurassic likely led to the origin of birds about 170-160 million years ago. Anchiornithidae is likely to be the earliest-diverging avialan clade, and thus is crucial for understanding the origin of birds.. At the present, the studies of Anchiornithidae mainly focus on its stratigraphic and temporal ranges, morphology, taxonomy, phylogenetic relationship, feather coloration, etc., whereas the group remains poorly understood in ontogenetic growth and development which are fundamental for understanding the dinosaur-bird transition as well as anchiornithid taxonomy. This proposed project aims to study the growth and development of anchiornithids based on both morphological and bone histological data. These data will be analyzed qualitatively and quantitatively to build accurate models of both general ontogenetic growth and bone development. These models will be used as a basis for anchiornithid taxonomy study and additional physiological and ecological inferences.