Collaborative Research: Jaws and Backbone: Chondrichthyan Phylogeny and a Spine for the Vertebrate Tree of Life

软骨鱼类，又称鲨鱼、鳐鱼和嵌合体，是大众文化中最著名的海洋动物之一，但对它们的进化却知之甚少。尽管它们是一个古老的群体，但我们对它们现在的多样性的模式和过程却知之甚少，而这种多样性正日益受到环境和捕捞压力的威胁。该项目将对鲨鱼、鳐鱼、鳐鱼和嵌合动物的多样性进行编目，提供基于DNA序列比较的关系谱系，并提供基于CT扫描数据的三维虚拟骨架数据库，以记录表征主要谱系的所有物理变化。该项目将涉及技术的发展，这些技术将影响为跨生物比较而收集DNA序列的方式。这可能对基于比较方法的比较生物化学、生理学和医学等学科产生深远的好处。该项目的外联部分将利用鲨鱼的普遍吸引力，展示现代分子生物学和计算机可视化技术如何被应用于更好地理解世界上日益受到威胁的生物多样性的进化。该项目是一项为期10年的努力的一部分，该努力旨在将美国研究收藏的生物标本相关的科学信息数字化和动员起来。该项目的图像和数字化数据将整合到在线国家资源中，如社区战略计划所述，可在http://digbiocol.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digistratplanfinaldraft.pdf上获得。

The Chondrichthyans, or sharks, rays and chimaeras, are some of the best known marine animals in popular culture but poorly known in terms of their evolution. Despite being an ancient group, we know surprisingly little about the patterns and processes that gave rise to their current diversity - a diversity that is increasingly under threat through environmental and fishing pressures. This project will catalog the diversity of sharks, skates, rays and chimaeras, provide a genealogy of relationships based on DNA sequence comparisons, and provide a data base of 3-D virtual skeletons based on CT scan data to document all of the physical variations that characterize the major lineages.The project will involve the development of technologies that will impact the way DNA sequences are collected for the purpose of comparison across organisms. This could have far reaching benefits for disciplines such as comparative biochemistry, physiology and medicine that are based on comparative approaches. The outreach component of the project will exploit the popular appeal of sharks to show how modern molecular biology and computer visualization techniques are being applied to better understand the evolution of the world's increasingly threatened biodiversity.This project is part of a 10-year effort to digitize and mobilize the scientific information associated with biological specimens held in U.S. research collections. The images and digitized data from this project will be integrated into the online national resource as outlined in the community strategic plan available at http://digbiocol.files.wordpress.com/2010/05/digistratplanfinaldraft.pdf.