DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Investigating the evolution of phalangerid marsupials in Sulawesi by incorporating morphology, molecular phylogenomics and biogeographical modeling

长期以来，苏拉威西岛一直以其高度独特和特有的脊椎动物群而闻名;然而，科学家们无法确定这些动物是如何或何时到达岛上的，也无法确定是什么推动了它们的显着多样化。这种理解的不足部分是由于动物之间关系的不确定性以及重建该岛高度复杂的地质历史的困难。对于许多分类群，由于缺乏足够的地理抽样，岛屿内部的多样化模式仍然不清楚。这项研究将评估苏拉威西岛陆地哺乳动物的殖民化和岛内多样化的时间和地理模式，使用袋袋类动物作为模型系统。重建这一地区库斯库斯之间的进化关系将有助于阐明苏拉威西岛的历史地理学。这项研究将大大拓宽职业生涯早期的女科学家，谁也将培训和共同建议本科生的专业和技术发展。 该项目将测试苏拉威西岛形成期间的微板块构造和更新世栖息地破碎化推动了大熊猫亚科（长尾科、有袋目）多样化的假设。通过利用现有的博物馆收藏品和提取古代DNA的新方法，可以实现广泛的岛屿间和岛屿内取样。研究人员将结合传统的形态学技术来区分和描述分类群，沿着基因组学方法来重建它们的进化关系。 生物地理模型将用于评估不同地理物种形成情景的可能性。利用这些结果作为框架，研究人员将对该亚科进行分类学修订。

The island of Sulawesi has long been recognized for its highly distinctive and endemic vertebrate fauna; however, scientists have not been able to determine how or when many of these animals arrived on the island or what drove their remarkable diversification. This deficit of understanding has been due in part to uncertainty surrounding relationships among the animals themselves and the difficulty of reconstructing the island's highly complex geological history. For many taxa, intra-island diversification patterns remain unclear due to a lack of sufficient geographic sampling. This study will evaluate the temporal and geographic patterns of colonization and intra-island diversification of terrestrial mammals on Sulawesi by using cuscus marsupials as a model system. Reconstructing the evolutionary relationships among cuscuses across this region will help elucidate the historical biogeography of Sulawesi. This research will significantly broaden the professional and technical development of an early career female scientist, who will also train and co-advise an undergraduate student. This project will test the hypothesis that microplate tectonics during the formation of Sulawesi and habitat fragmentation in the Pleistocene drove diversification in the Ailuropinae (Phalangeridae, Marsupialia). Extensive inter- and intra-island sampling with be achieved by using existing museum collections and novel methods of extracting ancient DNA. The researchers will incorporate traditional morphological techniques to distinguish and describe taxa along with phylogenomic methods to reconstruct their evolutionary relationships. Biogeographical modeling will then be used to assess the likelihood of different geographical speciation scenarios. Using these results as a framework, the researchers will then produce a taxonomic revision of the subfamily.