RUI/Collaborative Research: Development, Performance, & Evolutionary Ramifications of Premaxillary Protrusion in Teleosts: A Transdisciplinary Study of Convergent Evolution

这个创新的合作项目从进化、发展、生物力学、工程和功能形态学等领域采用综合、跨学科和跨学科的方法，利用实验和建模来研究硬骨鱼类的突出颚的复杂结构的功能和进化。这一特征被认为是主要的进化创新，它允许鱼类的多样性进化，鱼类的种类比所有其他脊椎动物的种类加起来都多。有趣的是，并不是所有的鱼类都以同样的方式产生这种复杂的特征。该项目评估了发展如何限制或解放复杂性的进化，并测试了关于由不同的发展机制产生的收敛功能的假设，以及性能后果。这个提议直接解决了为什么某些形式在自然界中重复，而其他形式不出现的问题。本研究将探讨以下问题：(1)不同的发育机制如何产生趋同功能？(2)上颌突出的性能优势是什么？(3)不同的潜在机制是否存在绩效后果？在回答这些问题时，这项研究将确定鱼类受发育限制的程度，以及它们如何摆脱这些限制。这项研究的更广泛的影响是强大的，包括初级研究员PI，生物学中代表性不足的群体的成员，以及对不同学生的培训，特别是少数民族服务机构的本科生。

This innovative collaborative project takes integrative, inter- and transdisciplanary approaches from the fields of evolution, development, biomechanics, engineering, and functional morphology, using experimentation and modeling to examine the function and evolution of a complex structure, the protrusible jaw of bony fishes. This feature is considered the major evolutionary innovation that allowed for the evolution of the diversity of fishes, which include more species than all other vertebrates together. Interestingly, not all fishes produce this complex feature in the same way. This project assesses how development may constrain or liberate the evolution of complexity and tests hypotheses about convergent function generated by divergent developmental mechanisms, and performance consequences. This proposal directly addresses the question of why certain forms repeat in nature, while others do not appear. This research will address the following questions: (1) How do different developmental mechanisms generate convergent function? (2) What is the performance advantage of upper jaw protrusion? (3) Are there performance consequences for the different underlying mechanisms? In answering these questions this research will determine the extent to which fishes are constrained by development, and how they may escape these constraints.The Broader Impacts of this research are strong, including a PI that is a beginning investigator, one that is a member of a group underrepresented in Biology, and the training of diverse students, especially undergraduates at a Minority Serving Institution.