RCN: Mammal diversification in relation to dynamic landscapes

这个项目将解决为什么在地理上复杂的地区，如山脉，物种多样性往往更大的问题，这种模式在许多不同的群体中都存在，如哺乳动物、鸟类和开花植物。研究重点将集中在过去3000万年来北美西部现代和化石啮齿动物的生态和进化过程。该项目将创建一个由生物学家和地球科学家组成的合作网络。活动将包括跨学科小组的年度讲习班以及对学生和其他职业生涯早期科学家的培训。除了了解生物多样性的原因外，研究结果还可以用于保护山地地区的生物多样性。网络参与者将向科学和普通受众宣传他们的成果，为大学生开发教学模块，并为参与者所属的自然历史博物馆设计展品。该项目将重点关注造山和气候历史在刺激多样性变化(通过物种形成、适应进化和灭绝)、推动地理范围转移以及对当地社区物种的生态特征进行分类方面的互动影响。这项研究将侧重于啮齿动物，因为它们具有高度的多样性、强大的化石记录、清晰的生物和化石群体的系统发育，以及作为猎物物种和环境变化指示器在生态系统中的重要作用。它将使用来自北美西部的数据，因为它包含了分别位于西部山间地带和大平原的地形复杂程度高和低的对比景观。研究目标包括：重建适合于生物地理分析的景观历史方面，测试物种起源和灭绝的模型，以及测试随着谱系和动物群的时间和空间变化而产生的生态特征的选择性。分析将证明，与单独研究现代或历史数据相比，整合新本体、古生物学和地史数据可以获得更大的洞察力。了解啮齿动物多样性在很长一段时间内的地理变化对于山地地区的保护工作也是相关的，这些地区在全球变暖期间提供了气候避难所。

This project will address the question of why species diversity tends to be greater in regions that are geographically complex, such as mountain ranges, a pattern that is found in many different groups such as mammals, birds, and flowering plants. Research will focus on ecological and evolutionary processes in modern and fossil rodents of western North America over the last 30 million years. The project will create a collaborative network of biologists and earth scientists. Activities will include annual workshops of interdisciplinary groups and the training of students and other early-career scientists. Besides gaining understanding of the causes of biodiversity, the results can be used for conservation of biodiversity in montane regions. Network participants will publicize their results to both scientific and general audiences, develop teaching modules for college students, and design exhibits for natural-history museums affiliated with the participants.The project will focus on the interactive influences of mountain-building and climatic history in stimulating changes in diversity (through speciation, adaptive evolution, and extinction), driving geographic-range shifts, and sorting the ecological traits of species in local communities. The research will focus on rodents due to their high diversity, strong fossil record, well-resolved phylogenies for living and fossil groups, and vital roles in ecosystems as prey species and indicators of environmental change. It will use data from western North America because it contains landscapes of contrasting high and low topographic complexity in the intermontane west and the Great Plains, respectively. The research goals include: reconstructing aspects of landscape history suitable for biogeographic analyses, testing models of origination and extinction of species, and testing for selectivity of ecological traits during changes over time and space in lineages and faunas. Analyses will demonstrate that the integration of neontological, paleontological, and geohistorical data can achieve greater insights than studying modern or historical data alone. Understanding geographic changes in rodent diversity over deep time is also relevant for conservation efforts in montane regions, which provide climatic refugia during periods of global warming.