U.S.-Nigeria Cooperative Research on Patterns of Predation and Taxonomic Diversification in Cenozoic Gastropod Assemblages

这项提案要求提供资金，允许艾伦·J·科恩博士， 华盛顿大学动物学系教授。 Ingela Arua，尼日利亚大学地质系， 在24个月的时间里， 捕食模式和分类学合作研究 新生代腹足类组合的多样性。 的 研究将解决这个问题：复杂的 芋螺科在其中如此突出的社区发展在 时间？ 合作者将利用收集的材料， PI根据先前的NSF赠款，从集合， 琉球中新世末至更新世末的时代 斐济群岛。 他们的方法将包括（1） 形态测量和其他壳的多变量分析 特征和（2）物种确定参考 模式标本分析与鉴别 种内差异与种间差异。 这个项目的重点是一个最大的家庭， 海洋腹足类软体动物芋螺科 该系列 主要是热带海洋蜗牛是重要的，因为它 非常高的多样性，广泛的地理范围，许多 它的物种，它作为一种优势捕食者的生态角色， 主要分布在热带浅海， 印度-西太平洋地区及其对人类的不寻常危险。 它的神经毒性毒液，通常用来制服猎物， 是致命的人。这个项目增加了一个国际 Kohn博士研究的合作维度得到支持 根据NSF授权号BSR-8700523。 Arua博士的专业知识 在研究腹足类捕食模式时获得的 在尼日利亚始新世发现的化石将使该项目受益匪浅。 该项目与《科学》的目标有关 发展中国家计划，旨在提高 美国科学家和工程师之间的合作水平 与发展中国家的对应方通过 交流科学信息、思想、技能， 技术，并通过在共同问题上的合作， 效益

This proposal requests funds to permit Dr. Alan J. Kohn, Department of Zoology, University of Washington, and Dr. Ingela Arua, Department of Geology, University of Nigeria, to pursue, for a period of 24 months, a program of cooperative research on patterns of predation and taxonomic diversification in Cenozoic gastropod assemblages. The research will address the question: How did the complex communities in which Conidae are so prominent develop in time? The collaborators will utilize material collected by the PI under prior NSF grants from assemblages ranging in age from latest Miocene to latest Pleistocene in the Ryukyu and Fiji Islands. Their methods will include (1) multivariate analysis of morphometric and other shell characters and (2) species determination by reference to the analysis of type specimens and discriminating within-species variation from between-species differences. 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 the shallow tropical seas of the Indo-West Pacific region, and its unusual danger to man. Its neurotoxic venom, normally used to overpower prey, can be fatal to man. This project adds an international cooperative dimension to Dr. Kohn's research supported under NSF Grant No. BSR-8700523. Dr. Arua's expertise gained during her studies of gastropod predation patterns in the Eocene of Nigeria will greatly benefit the project. This project is relevant to the objectives of the Science in Developing Countries Program which seeks to increase the level of cooperation between U.S. scientists and engineers and their counterparts in developing countries through the exchange of scientific information, ideas, skills, and techniques and through collaboration on problems of mutual benefit.