Evolution of Flight Performance and Phylogeny of Hummingbirds

路易斯安那州立大学的吉米·A·麦奎尔博士和德克萨斯大学奥斯汀分校的罗伯特·达德利博士获得了一项资助，以研究形态和生理在蜂鸟飞行能力进化中所起的作用。更具体地说，他们将生成一棵系统发育树，描述300种蜂鸟的物种水平系谱，然后使用这一系谱作为比较分析的框架。为了制作这棵树，他们将对五个基因(一个线粒体和四个核)进行测序，然后应用最近开发的基于模型的系统发育分析方法来分析这些遗传数据。在该项目的第二部分，他们正在测量各种蜂鸟的飞行性能，以评估形态设计的变化如何影响运动性能，以及在这种具有空气动力学挑战的环境中，发生在高海拔地区的蜂鸟如何弥补空气密度和氧气含量的降低。系统发育分析不仅对飞行性能数据的统计分析至关重要，而且对于更大的进化生物学家社区来说也将是无价的，他们将蜂鸟作为自己研究的“模型系统”。这项工作也具有普遍的重要性，因为它将通过利用比较的性能数据大大改善目前对动物飞行的理解。对于其他脊椎动物物种来说，这些数据是极其困难的，但对于蜂鸟来说，由于它们使用悬停飞行，这些数据很容易获得。

DEB-0108555Jimmy McGuireRobert DudleyA grant has been awarded to Drs. Jimmy A. McGuire of Louisiana State University and Robert Dudley of the University of Texas at Austin to investigate the role that morphology and physiology have played in the evolution of flight performance in hummingbirds. More specifically, they will generate a phylogenetic tree describing the species-level genealogy for 300 species of hummingbirds and will then use this genealogy as the framework for comparative analysis. To produce this tree, they will sequence five genes (one mitochondrial and 4 nuclear) and then analyze these genetic data by applying a recently developed model-based method of phylogenetic analysis. In the second component of the project, they are measuring flight performance across the diversity of hummingbirds to evaluate how variation in morphological design affects locomotor performance, and how hummingbirds that occur at high elevation compensate for reduced air density and oxygen content in this aerodynamically challenging environment. The phylogenetic analysis is not only critical for statistical analysis of flight performance data, but will also be invaluable to the larger community of evolutionary biologists that utilize hummingbirds as the "model system" for their own investigations. This work is also of general importance because it will substantially improve current understanding of animal flight by utilizing comparative performance data. These data are extremely difficult to obtain for other vertebrate species, but tractable in hummingbirds because of their use of hovering flight.