CAREER: A comparative study of two trilobite diversification events to advance understanding of early animal evolution.

几乎所有主要的活着的动物群体都是在地质历史的同一时期首次出现在化石记录中的。这是全球生态系统高度多样化和重大转变的时期。三叶虫节肢动物是这些早期海洋生态系统的主要组成部分，在化石记录中保存完好，为研究这一时期推动多样性的过程提供了一个极好的系统。具体地说，该项目将使用三叶虫化石记录来测试长期存在的假设，即在地球上动物进化的最关键时期之一，发展和生态在决定多样化比率方面的相对重要性。该项目还推进了对纽约州各地高需求学校的初中生和教师的地球科学培训。这一倡议将为教师提供创新的实地经验，支持教学收藏和互动课堂活动的发展，并为教师和学生提供身临其境的博物馆参观。该项目将比较寒武纪和奥陶纪的两个主要多样化事件，以检查多样化速率，并了解发展和生态在推动三叶虫进化中的作用。PI和合作者将利用新的分析方法来识别重要的进化特征，并使用尖端方法来构建包含不确定性的时间标度树。该项目的主要成果将是基于丰富的数据特征矩阵的时间尺度的三叶虫进化树，这也将为研究关于生物地理、趋势和生长模式在特征进化和多样化中的作用的无数问题提供未来的路线图。此外，该项目将汇集一个由三叶虫组成的国际专家小组，为研究三叶虫群体制定共同的特征和命名。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智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Almost all major groups of living animals first appeared in the fossil record around the same time in the geologic past. This was a time period of high diversification and major shifts in the global ecosystem. The trilobite arthropods were a major component of these early marine ecosystems and are well preserved in the fossil record, providing an excellent system for studying the processes that drove diversification during this time period. Specifically, this project will use the trilobite fossil record to test long-standing hypotheses about the relative importance of development and ecology in determining diversification rates during one of the most critical times periods in the evolution of animals on Earth. This project also advances Earth Science training for middle and high school students and teachers from high-needs schools across New York State. This initiative will provide innovative field experiences for teachers, support in the development of teaching collections and interactive classroom activities, and immersive museum visits for teachers and their students. The project will compare two major diversification events in the Cambrian and Ordovician in order to examine diversification rates and to understand the roles of development and ecology in driving the evolution of trilobites. The PI and collaborators will leverage new analytical approaches for identifying important evolutionary traits and use cutting-edge methods for building time-scaled trees that incorporate uncertainty. A major outcome of the project will be a time-scaled, trilobite evolutionary tree based on a data-rich trait matrix, which also will provide a future roadmap for investigating a myriad of questions about the role of biogeography, trends, and growth patterns in trait evolution and diversification. In addition, the project will bring together an international group of trilobite experts to develop common traits and nomenclature for studying trilobite groups.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.