CAREER: Exploring environmental drivers of morphological change through phylogenetic paleoecology

理解是什么推动了新的动物形式的进化，以及对以前未被利用的环境的占领，对于理解地球上的生命历史至关重要。新的形态通过一种被称为异时性的过程出现，在这种过程中，物种生长的时间或速度的变化导致成年个体具有更多幼年样或夸张的成体样特征。尚不清楚的是，进入新的环境是否会导致发育的变化，或者发育的变化是否允许动物进入新的环境。这项研究探索了动物特征的变化和生态变化之间的关系，以确定是什么推动了新物种的进化。该项目将资助研究生和本科生的研究，并将结果整合到大学课堂上。这项研究还将用于让中学生研究地质过程以及它们如何在不同的时间和空间尺度上改变地球表面。数据库、博物馆和文献数据将与系统发育框架相结合，以生成一种不同类型水生节肢动物的生态占领模式、异时性趋势和进化速度的综合视图。这将产生形态变化的速度和模式与生态占有率的变化的综合，以确定新表型发展背后的驱动力和调节生态扩张的因素。该项目的主要优点是利用系统发育关系与化石记录中的生态和表型数据整合了一个等级框架。开发一种评估异时性的量化指标将使人们能够第一次直接比较不同分支之间的异时性趋势。该项目将通过由首席调查员和一名硕士教师准备的高质量课程丰富本科生职前科学教师的准备工作，以支持K-12教育，后者将利用这项研究吸引人们的兴趣，并提供真实世界的例子和数据。完成的课程将在一个全国性的K-12教育信息交换中心提供。该奖项是与系统学和生物多样性科学项目(环境生物学分部)共同资助的。该奖项反映了NSF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。

Understanding what drives the evolution of new animal forms and the occupation of previously unused environments is critical for understanding the history of life on Earth. New forms arise through a process called heterochrony, where changes in the timing or speed of a species’ growth result in adults with either more juvenile-like or exaggerated adult-like characteristics. What is unclear is whether moving into new environments causes changes in development, or whether changes in development allow animals to move into new environments. This research explores the relationship between changes in animal traits and shifts in ecology to determine what drives the evolution of new species. The project will fund graduate and undergraduate research, and the results will be integrated into college classes. The research also will be used to engage middle school students in the study of geological processes and how they have changed Earth’s surface at varying temporal and spatial scales.Database, museum, and literature data will be used in concert with phylogenetic frameworks to generate a comprehensive view of patterns in ecological occupation, heterochronic trends, and evolutionary rates across a diverse set of aquatic arthropods. This will produce a synthesis of the rate and mode of morphological change with shifts in ecological occupation to determine the driving forces behind the development of novel phenotypes and factors mediating ecological expansion. The chief merit of the project is the integration of a hierarchical framework using phylogenetic relationships with ecological and phenotypic data from the fossil record. The development of a quantitative metric to evaluate heterochrony will permit direct comparison of heterochronic trends between clades for the first time. The project will support K-12 education by enriching undergraduate pre-service science teachers' preparation with high-quality lessons prepared by the Principal Investigator and a Master Teacher who will use this research to draw interest and provide real-world examples and data. The completed lessons will be available on a national K-12 educator clearinghouse. This award is co-funded with the Systematics and Biodiversity Sciences program (Division of Environmental Biology).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.