EAPSI:Evolutionary Dynamics of Mesozoic Dinosaur and Mammal Ecomorphology

恐龙和哺乳动物有许多相似之处，包括温血，全球分布，以及不同的身体形式和生活方式。这个项目将探索这两个动物群体在全球变得多样化和广泛传播的方式。这一分析的结果将使人们深入了解为什么不同的动物群体主导着世界生态系统，并适应各种各样的生活方式。这位研究员将测量中生代恐龙和哺乳动物化石，并计算肌肉杠杆手臂，这是一般运动能力的指标。这些数据将被用来模拟杠杆臂随时间变化的速度和模式，并测试与环境变化的关联。这位研究员将访问北京脊椎动物古生物学与古人类学研究所，与脊椎动物古生物学领域的顶尖专家之一许醒博士合作，并收集中国恐龙和哺乳动物物种的数据。生物创新的起源，如陆地定居和动力飞行，是脊椎动物进化的关键事件，经常伴随着运动形态的变化。然而，关于这种变化的速度是如何由于特征-环境交互作用而引起的，我们知之甚少。该项目的总体目标是量化中生代哺乳动物和恐龙的运动变化速度。这位研究员假设，高发病率与生理和环境的变化相吻合。恐龙的运动与哺乳动物的运动有显著的相似之处，因此为研究特征-环境交互作用如何影响生物创新提供了一个自然的实验。我们将收集中生代哺乳动物和恐龙前肢和后肢的运动杠杆臂的形态数据。这些参数的简单性使得可以在不同物种的模型中模拟不同物种之间的速率变化。该奖项由东亚和太平洋夏季学院计划设立，支持一名美国研究生的夏季研究，由美国国家科学基金会和中国的科技部联合资助。

Dinosaurs and mammals have many similarities, including warm-bloodedness, a global distribution, and diverse body forms and lifestyles. This project will explore the ways in which these two animal groups became diverse and widespread across the globe. The results of this analysis will yield insights into why different animal groups dominate the world's ecosystems and adapt to a large variety of lifestyles. The fellow will measure Mesozoic dinosaur and mammal fossils and calculate muscle lever arms, an indicator of general movement capability. These data will be used to model the rates and patterns of lever arm change over time and test for associations with environmental change. The fellow will visit the Institute of Vertebrate Paleontology and Paleoanthropology in Beijing to work with Dr. Xu Xing, one of the leading experts on vertebrate paleontology, and collect data from Chinese dinosaur and mammal species.The origins of biological innovations, such as terrestrial colonization and powered flight, are pivotal events in vertebrate evolution, and are often coupled with changes in locomotor morphology. Yet, little is known about how the rate of such changes are due to trait-environment interactions. The overall objective of this project is to quantify the rate of locomotor change in Mesozoic mammals and dinosaurs. The fellow hypothesizes that high rates coincide with shifts in physiology and the environment. Dinosaur locomotion has remarkable parallels with mammal locomotion and thus provides a natural experiment for investigating how trait-environment interactions influence biological innovation. We will collect morphological data on the locomotor lever-arms from Mesozoic mammal and dinosaur fore- and hind-limbs. The simplicity of these parameters allows rate shifts to be modeled across clades that would be undetectable using species-specific models.This award, under the East Asia and Pacific Summer Institutes program, supports summer research by a U.S. graduate student and is jointly funded by NSF and China's Ministry of Science and Technology.