Evolution and Diversity Dynamics of Late Cretaceous Dinosaurs

导致白垩纪末期大灭绝事件的陆地生物多样性模式仍在激烈争论中。本研究项目的长期目标是研究大型陆生脊椎动物，特别是白垩纪恐龙的大规模进化和生物多样性模式，并评估它们与气候和环境变化的关系。该项目旨在将恐龙的比较解剖学、生长和骨骼组织学、系统发育系统学与新兴的古气候和古环境数据相结合，以评估这些地球系统变化对陆生脊椎动物进化和生态动力学、生物地理学和生物多样性的作用，从而导致白垩纪末期的灭绝事件。与该项目相关的野外工作将扩展对加拿大古生物学鲜为人知地区白垩纪陆生脊椎动物分布的了解。本提案中的系统学研究将产生持久的影响，因为它将为更复杂、更大规模的古生态和生物多样性变化元分析提供必要的基础数据。这项工作将应用新的建模方法来纠正高分辨率地质数据背景下的抽样偏差，从而比以往任何时候都更严格地测试白垩纪晚期生物多样性的假设模式。因此，这项研究将更好地理解气候和环境变化在恐龙进化模式、生物地理和多样性方面的作用，从而导致白垩纪末的灭绝事件。因此，它将在总体上揭示大规模物种灭绝的原因和后果，这与我们今天面临的生物多样性危机有关。最后，该研究对理解进化与环境之间的历史关系具有更广泛的意义，并将有助于我们对陆地生态系统进化的认识。

The pattern of terrestrial biodiversity leading to the terminal Cretaceous mass extinction event continues to be hotly debated. The long-term goal of this research program is to investigate large scale evolutionary and biodiversity patterns in large-bodied terrestrial vertebrates, specifically Cretaceous dinosaurs, and evaluate their relationship to climatic and environmental change. This programs aims to integrate comparative anatomy, growth and bone histology, and phylogenetic systematics of dinosaurs with emerging paleoclimatic and paleoenvironmental data to evaluate the role of these Earth systems changes on terrestrial vertebrate evolutionary and ecological dynamics, biogeography, and biodiversity leading up to the end-Cretaceous extinction event. Fieldwork associated with this program will extend knowledge of the distribution of Cretaceous terrestrial vertebrates in paleontologically poorly known regions of Canada. The systematics research in this proposal will have a long-lasting impact because it will provide fundamental data requisite for more sophisticated, larger meta-analyses of paleoecological and biodiversity change. This will work will apply new modeling methods to correct for sampling biases in the context of high-resolution geological data to test hypothesized biodiversity patterns in the Late Cretaceous more rigorously than ever before. This research will therefore provide a better understanding of the role of climate and environmental change on patterns of dinosaur evolution, biogeography, and diversity leading up to the end-Cretaceous extinction event. As such, it will shed new light on the causes and consequences of mass extinctions in general, which is pertinent to the biodiversity crisis we are facing today. Finally, this research has broader implications for understanding the historical relationship between evolution and environment, and will contribute to our knowledge of terrestrial ecosystem evolution.