Time frame for the evolution of Australia's extraordinary mammals

该项目将完善国家生物地层学框架，整合对澳大利亚独特哺乳动物历史、气候变化和地质事件的日益了解。将澳大利亚的系统发育、古生态和古气候事件联系起来的精确度越来越高，将阐明这些事件如何协同作用，改变环境和生物多样性。生物地层学框架精度的提高也将服务于进化遗传学，后者需要年龄数据来计算分子分化率，经济地质学家需要知道新生代沉积物的年龄，生物学家试图了解生物多样性的起源和本质，保护主义者使用分化日期和相对分支长度来帮助确定保护优先级。

This Project will refine a national biostratigraphic framework integrating growing understanding about the history of Australia's unique mammals, climate change and geological events. Increasing precision in correlating Australia's phylogenetic, palaeoecological and palaeoclimatological events will clarify how these act synergistically to change environments and biodiversity. Increased precision in the biostratigraphic framework will also serve evolutionary genetics which needs age data to calculate molecular rates of divergence, economic geologists needing to know the age of Cainozoic sediments, biologists trying to understand the origins and nature of biodiversity and conservationists using divergence dates and relative branch lengths to help determine conservation priorities.