Collaborative Research: Taxonomy, Phylogeny and the Evolution of Feeding Strategies in Fossil and Living Mysticete Cetaceans

圣地亚哥州立大学的Annalisa Berta博士获得了一笔赠款，用于支持一个由博物馆和大学科学家参与的合作项目，重建须鲸化石和活物种之间的进化关系。将同时使用解剖学和分子数据集，并探索对这些数据集的单独和组合分析的结果。这项研究将为美国、欧洲、澳大拉西亚和日本的各种博物馆收藏品中的须鲸化石(特别是头骨和颌骨中的特征)添加大量新的解剖学信息。然后，这个框架将被用来解释须鲸独特的滤食专门化的发展，特别是从有牙齿的化石物种到有须鲸的现代物种的进食进化过渡。很少有研究调查须鲸的相互关系，结果是相互矛盾的。这项研究将把现代须鲸的多样性置于历史背景下。对须鲸过去的多样性与全球气候变化时期的关系的研究可能会为濒危现代物种提出保护战略，否则可能没有考虑到这一点。该项目将为本科生和研究生提供培训。这项研究的结果将被纳入圣地亚哥自然历史博物馆计划展出的鲸鱼进化展览中。

A grant has been awarded to Dr. Annalisa Berta at San Diego State University tosupport a collaborative project involving museum and university scientists in the reconstruction of evolutionary relationships among fossil and living species of baleen whales. Both anatomical and molecular data sets will be employed and the results of separate and combined analyses of these data sets explored. This study will add considerable new anatomical information from fossil baleen whales (especially characters from the skull and jaws) examined in various museum collections in the US, Europe, Australasia, and Japan. This framework will then be used to interpret the development of the unique filter feeding specializations of baleen whales, especially the evolutionary transition in feeding from tooth-bearing fossil species to baleen-bearing modern species. Few studies have investigated the interrelationships of baleen whales and the results are conflicting. This study will place modern baleen whale diversity in a historical context. Study of the past diversity of baleen whales in relation to times of global climate change may suggest conservation strategies for endangered modern species that may not have otherwise been considered. This project will provide training for both undergraduate and graduate students. Results of the study will be incorporated into exhibits about whale evolution planned at the San Diego Museum of Natural History.