Collaborative Research: From demography to diversification: population-level drivers of phylogenetic speciation dynamics across squamate reptiles

物种多样性在整个生命之树上变化巨大：一些生物群体，如甲虫和开花植物，比大多数其他生物群体包含更多的物种。理解一些群体如何以及为什么会比其他群体拥有更多的物种，是生命科学中一个尚未解决的核心问题。对这些物种数量差异的一类解释涉及到新物种出现的速度。利用基因组生物学和计算数据科学的工具，该项目将确定导致不同物种形成速率的机制，并量化它们在脊椎动物主要群体中的重要性。该项目将为本科生、研究生和博士后的学生和研究人员提供基因组学、地理信息系统、计算生物学和生物多样性科学方面的培训。基因组资源和为该项目开发的新科学软件将向公众开放，一个博物馆展览将突出展示基因组学和计算机编程如何改变科学家研究和理解地球上生命形式多样性的方式。该项目将通过整合下一代种群基因组学和谱系多样化率的系统发育比较视角，在种群生物学和大尺度物种多样性模式之间建立新的综合。该项目将量化几个种群过程的基因组信号，以解决在时间校准的系统发育树上测量的种群分裂率和持久性如何影响物种形成率。这些目标将通过估计许多物种形成率不同的鳞片类爬行动物物种的系统地理和种群基因组参数，以及通过开发新的方法将这些参数与系统发育树的多样化率联系起来来支持。该项目还将评估有机体特征（生活史、扩散生物学、种群规模）如何有助于影响早期物种形成和持续的人口统计过程。该项目将在两个非常不同的时间尺度上发生的生物过程之间架起一座桥梁，并将使人们了解生态时间尺度上的人口变化如何影响深层（百万年）时间尺度上的生物多样性变化。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Species diversity varies dramatically across the tree of life: some groups of organisms, such as beetles and flowering plants, contain far more species than most other groups of organisms. Understanding how and why some groups have come to be more species-rich than other groups is a central and unsolved problem in the life sciences. One class of explanations for these differences in species numbers involves the rate at which new species arise. Using tools from genome biology and computational data science, this project will identify the mechanisms that lead to different rates of species formation and quantify their importance in a major group of vertebrate animals. The project will provide training in genomics, geographic information systems, computational biology, and biodiversity science for students and researchers at the undergraduate, graduate, and postdoctoral levels. Genomic resources and new scientific software developed for the project will be made publicly available, and a museum exhibit will highlight the ways in which genomics and computer programming are changing the way scientists study and understand the diversity of life forms on Earth.This project will produce a novel synthesis between population biology and large-scale patterns of species diversity by integrating next-generation population genomics with a phylogenetic comparative perspective on lineage diversification rates. The project will quantify the genomic signal of several population processes to address how rates of population splitting and persistence influence speciation rates as measured on time-calibrated phylogenetic trees. These objectives will be supported by estimating phylogeographic and population genomic parameters across many species of squamate reptiles that vary in rates of speciation, and by developing new methods to link these parameters to diversification rates on phylogenetic trees. The project will also assess how organismal traits (life history, dispersal biology, population size) contribute to demographic processes that can influence the formation and persistence of incipient species. The project will provide a bridge between biological processes that occur at two very different timescales and will provide an understanding of how changes in populations at ecological timescales affect changes in biological diversity at deep (million-year) timescales.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.