DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Phylogenetic systematics, lineage diversification, and niche evolution in spinetails (Furnariidae, Aves)

论文研究：系统发育系统学、谱系多样化和刺尾鱼（Furnariidae、Aves）的生态位进化

• 批准号: 1406932
• 负责人: Robb Brumfield
• 金额: $ 1.92万
• 依托单位: Louisiana State University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2014
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2014-06-01 至 2017-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1406932&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: DISSERTATION; RESEARCH; Phylogenetic; systematics; lineage

Determining the how species are created is key to understanding the origins and maintenance of biodiversity across the planet. This project tackles this issue by focusing on a small set of very similar tropical birds called "spinetails", which are unusual because they appear to have developed new species at an incredibly fast rate. If this rapid speciation is indeed the case, study of spinetails will likely reveal novel insights about how new species come about. Investigators will use genetic techniques and cutting-edge statistical analyses to determine the evolutionary history of spinetails. The study will foster international partnerships through sharing of genetic samples and collaborating on complicated analyses of huge genetic datasets. The study will also provide research opportunities for undergraduates interested in learning how to apply bioinformatics and statistical programming to answer fundamental questions in ecology and evolutionary biology. Results of this study will help resolve long-standing taxonomic confusion about spinetails and provide a clearer picture of South American biodiversity -- a goal of both science and conservation.Specifically, the investigators will test two alternative hypotheses of speciation. Both hypotheses rely on geographic isolation as a key requirement and explore the ecological context in which populations become isolated. On the one hand, if two populations of the same species occur in different environments it may cause to them to diverge ecologically due to local adaptation. Alternatively, small environmental differences may exist within a species' distribution due to conserved ecological preferences. If this distribution is divided by a region outside the species' ecological preference, such as mountains for a lowland species, dispersal will be greatly restricted. These hypotheses will be tested at multiple evolutionary scales. Across Furnariidae, there is a positive relationship between the rate of ecological divergence and speciation. Importantly, the arboreal spinetails (genus Cranioleuca) exhibit rates of ecological divergence and speciation far exceeding those found in other groups in the family. Both observations support the hypothesis that ecological divergence is associated with speciation, but to test these hypotheses a densely sampled phylogeny is needed. This study will reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of the arboreal spinetails using genomic scale genetic datasets. Investigators will then employ detailed comparative analyses to determine if speciation in this group is associated with ecological divergence or conservatism.

确定物种的创造方式是了解整个地球生物多样性的起源和维持的关键。该项目通过专注于一组称为“ Spinetails”的非常相似的热带鸟类来解决这个问题，这是不寻常的，因为它们似乎以非常快的速度开发了新物种。 如果确实是这种快速形容的，那么对Spinetails的研究可能会揭示有关新物种如何产生的新见解。研究人员将使用遗传技术和尖端的统计分析来确定细尾尾的进化史。这项研究将通过共享遗传样本并在庞大的遗传数据集的复杂分析中合作促进国际伙伴关系。该研究还将为有兴趣学习如何应用生物信息学和统计编程的本科生提供研究机会，以回答生态学和进化生物学中的基本问题。这项研究的结果将有助于解决有关旋尾的长期分类的混乱，并提供更清晰的南美生物多样性 - 科学和保护的目的。特别是，研究人员将检验两个替代性形成的替代假设。这两个假设都依靠地理隔离作为关键要求，并探讨了种群孤立的生态环境。一方面，如果同一物种的两个种群发生在不同的环境中，则可能导致它们由于局部适应性而在生态上差异。另外，由于保守的生态偏好，物种分布中可能存在微小的环境差异。如果将这种分布除以物种生态偏好之外的区域，例如低地物种的山脉，则将受到极大限制。这些假设将在多个进化范围内进行测试。在整个Furnariidae中，生态差异和物种形成率之间存在正相关关系。重要的是，树栖旋转尾尾（颅骨属）表现出生态差异和物种物种的速率，远远超过了家族其他群体中的生态差异和物种形成。两种观察结果都支持生态差异与物种相关的假设，但是为了检验这些假设，需要密集采样的系统发育。这项研究将使用基因组量表遗传数据集重建树栖旋尾的进化关系。然后，研究人员将采用详细的比较分析来确定该组中的物种是否与生态差异或保守主义有关。