Evolutionary History of Hipparionine Horses and the Early Radiation of Holarctic Hipparionini

合作调查人员先前的工作揭示了一些 我们对人类与自然之间关系的认识存在重大差距， 马甲硫氨酸（3趾）马，必须在进一步补充之前补充 研究它们的进化史是有意义的。 他们现在建议对北美的 河马的采石场样本和相关的，更原始的 “merychippine”物种，为了澄清进化 所有河马的关系。 这项工作，加上 与正在进行的工作对旧世界的形式，将是重要的， 推进我们对1600万年历史的了解， 组 反过来，解决这个群体中的关系将 允许我们将其用于省级和洲际 地质相关性以及重建 这一时期的国际交流。 这些后者 研究对于理解 全球气候的长期变化之间的关系， 过去的地理分布模式，以及由此产生的模式 哺乳动物的物种形成

Previous work by the co-investigators has revealed some critical gaps in our knowledge of relationships among hipparionine (3-toed) horses that must be filled before further work on their evolutionary history can be meaningfully pursued. They now propose to conduct analyses of North American hipparionine quarry samples and related, more primitive "merychippine" species, in order to clarify the evolutionary relationships of all hipparionine horses. This work, coupled with ongoing work on Old World forms, will be important for advancing our knowledge of the 16 million year history of this group. In turn, resolution of relationships in this group will allow us to use it for provincial and intercontinental geological correlations as well as for reconstruction of intercontinental connections during this period. These latter studies are particularly important for understanding the relationships between long-term changes in global climates, patterns of past geographic distributions, and resulting patterns of mammalian speciation.