Collaborative Research: Inferring the impacts of closely-related species on phenotypic evolution

在岛屿自然选择的一个经典例子中，达尔文雀鸟喙之间的显著差异使这些物种能够共存，因为它们吃的是非常不同类型的食物。同样的过程可能对许多其他生物的进化也很重要，但如果没有明确的岛屿地理边界和达尔文雀惊人的不同身体形态，就很难检测到它们的影响。这个项目的重点是Scelopus蜥蜴，这是一大群经常共存的物种，在墨西哥和美国西南部大量存在。研究人员将收集身体形状和环境特征的详细测量数据，并开发新的统计方法来识别有别于多面手的大陆物种的身体和栖息地类型。然后，他们将测试共存于相同地理区域的物种在身体形态和生态方面是否彼此不同，并以地理上的精确度重建共存物种的古代历史。该项目强调国际合作(美国和墨西哥)和社区科学实践。它还将把研究纳入在三个机构教授的正式课程，并通过博物馆展品和其他形式的公众宣传来传播成果。生活在地理上邻近的密切相关的类群(即同域同源生物)造成了一种潜在的广泛和未被认识到的进化现象。该项目将从CT扫描和博物馆标本的几何形态分析中收集新的数据，对墨西哥和美国西南部的500个地点进行蜥蜴实地调查，并开发新的系统地理测试，以确定Scelopus蜥蜴是否倾向于与密切相关的类群共存。此外，研究人员将结合系统发育、气候和化石信息，重建Scelopus物种组合及其形态的详细进化和地理历史，测试关于物种间相互作用导致物种周转和多样化过程的假说。这些分析将测试关于觅食、栖息地利用和奇偶作为种间相互作用驱动因素的假设，询问共地同源者是否在重复的进化阶段施加了类似的选择压力，并测试共地物种组合的生物多样性(例如物种丰富度、系统发育多样性)与景观特征(例如栖息地异质性)之间的联系。该项目还将为未来的研究做出贡献，为那些希望对其他税种进行类似分析的人添加新的数据和R脚本。这一奖项反映了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。

In a classic example of natural selection on islands, the remarkable differences among the bills of Darwin’s finches allow these species to co-exist because they eat very different types of food. The same processes may also be important in shaping evolution in many other organisms, but their effects can be difficult to detect without the clear geographic boundaries of islands and the strikingly different body forms of Darwin’s finches. This project focuses on Sceloporus lizards, a large group of species that often co-exist, and that are abundant throughout Mexico and the southwestern United States. The researchers will gather detailed measurements of body shape and environmental features, and develop new statistical approaches to identify body and habitat types distinct from generalist, mainland species. They will then test whether species that co-exist in the same geographic areas differ from each other in body form and ecology, and reconstruct the ancient history of co-existing species with geographic precision. The project emphasizes international collaboration (US and Mexico) and community science practices. It will also embed the research in formal courses taught at three institutions, and disseminate results through museum exhibits and other forms of public outreach. Closely related taxa that live in geographic proximity (i.e., sympatric congeners) impose a potentially widespread and under-recognized evolutionary phenomenon. This project will gather new data from CT scans and from geometric morphometric analyses of museum specimens, conduct lizard field surveys of 500 sites in Mexico and the southwestern United States, and develop new phylogeographic tests of whether Sceloporus lizards tend to co-exist with closely related taxa. In addition, the researchers will combine phylogenetic, climate, and fossil information to reconstruct the detailed evolutionary and geographic history of Sceloporus species assemblages and their morphologies, testing hypotheses about the processes by which interspecies interactions lead to species turnover and diversification. These analyses will test hypotheses about the importance of foraging, habitat use, and parity as drivers of interspecific interactions, ask whether sympatric congeners have imposed similar selective pressures in repeated evolutionary episodes, and test for links between the biodiversity of sympatric species assemblages (e.g., species richness, phylogenetic diversity) and landscape characteristics (e.g., habitat heterogeneity). The project will also contribute to future studies by adding new data and R scripts for those who want to conduct similar analyses with other taxa.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.