Systematics of Recent and Fossil Conidae

这个项目的重点是海洋腹足类软体动物中最大的家族之一，孢子科。主要是热带海螺的这一科很重要，因为它的多样性非常高，许多物种的地理分布范围很广，它作为主要的掠食性群体的生态作用，主要生活在印度-西太平洋地区的热带浅海，以及它对人类的不同寻常的危险。它的神经毒性毒液通常用来制服猎物，已经夺去了至少30人的生命；毒液肽在调节离子转运的细胞膜蛋白的神经生物学研究中变得越来越重要。该科还作为印度-西太平洋许多海洋生物群所特有的一种进化适应性辐射的模型。与其他海洋环境相比，这些辐射对这一广阔地区浅水海洋生物群的丰富性作出了重要贡献。分孢子科起源于或早于新生代。化石出现在整个第三纪和第四纪地质记录中；主要的扩张发生在始新世和中新世。这个长期项目的总体目标是阐明孢子科物种多样性、形态对不同环境的适应、分布和生态的重要进化趋势。在拟议拨款期间，主要目标是改善这个复杂和分类学上非常困难的科的物种分类和鉴定系统。目的：采用定量分类学方法，完成对1840年以来所描述的模式标本和物种身份的年代学研究，并对一个重要亚群进行修订研究。该项目将把化石研究与对新物种的分类、比较生物学和生物地理学研究结合起来。这些结果可以增进对导致热带地区高度生物多样性的进化过程以及这些进化辐射模式对海洋生物群落组织的影响的理解。

This project focuses on one of the largest families of marine gastropod molluscs, the Conidae. This family of mainly tropical marine snails is important because of its very high diversity, the broad geographic range of many of its species, its ecological role as a dominant predatory group, primarily in shallow tropical seas of the Indo-West Pacific region, and its unusual danger to man. Its neurotoxic venom, normally used to overpower prey organisms, has claimed at least 30 human lives; the venom peptides are becoming increasingly significant in neurobiological studies of cell membrane proteins that regulate ion transport. The family also serves as a model of a type of evolutionary adaptive radiation characteristic of many groups of marine organisms in the Indo-West Pacific. These radiations have contributed importantly to the richness of the shallow-water marine biota of this vast region, in contrast to other marine environments. The Conidae originated at or just preceding the Cenozoic era. Fossils occur throughout the Tertiary and Quaternary geologic record; the major expansions occurred in the Eocene and Miocene epochs. The overall goal of this long-term project is to elucidate important evolutionary trends in species diversity, morphological adaptations to different environments, distribution, and ecology in the Conidae. For the proposed grant period the main goal is to improve the taxonomy and identification system of species in this complex and taxonomically very difficult family. Objective, quantitative taxonomic methods will be applied, a chronological study of type specimens and identity of species described through 1840 will be completed, and a revisionary study of one important subgroup will be made. The project will integrate study of fossils with continuing taxonomic, comparative biological, and biogeographic studies of recent species. The results may increase understanding of the evolutionary processes that lead to high biotic diversity in tropical regions and of the impact of these patterns of evolutionary radiations on the organization of communities of marine organisms.