Doctoral Dissertation Research: Phylogenetic relationships of Mid-Late Miocene hominoids: implications for understanding great ape and human evolution

博士论文研究：中新世中晚期人科动物的系统发育关系：对理解类人猿和人类进化的影响

• 批准号: 1613434
• 负责人: Christopher Gilbert
• 金额: $ 2.52万
• 依托单位: CUNY Hunter College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-07-15 至 2018-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1613434&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Doctoral; Dissertation; Research; Phylogenetic; relationships

Great apes, humans, and their ancestors have been the subject of substantial research, but there is much more to be learned about their shared evolutionary history leading up to the advent of the hominin lineage and upright walking. This project aims to more accurately determine relationships among fossil and living apes, and to use this information to better understand the evolution of characteristic ape and human locomotor behaviors, including those of our recent fossil ancestors. The project has broader impacts that include the generation of a large anatomical dataset that will be made freely accessible for future use, and the promotion of diversity in biological anthropology by the co-PI, a female graduate student and active member of several organizations aimed at engaging young girls in STEM fields. The primary objective of this study is to generate a robust phylogeny of stem and crown Hominidae to be used as a basis for testing competing phylogenetic hypotheses, and exploring questions about the polarity, geography, and evolutionary timing of the locomotor and positional behaviors characterizing great apes and humans using ancestral state reconstruction. Characters will be sampled from the skull and postcranium, with particular emphasis on the inclusion of novel quantitative and polymorphic characters from the postcranial skeleton. Parsimony and Bayesian methods will be used to infer phylogeny and to measure the relative support for competing phylogenetic hypotheses. This project represents the most comprehensive phylogenetic analysis of Mid-Late Miocene hominoids carried out to date and will provide a necessary foundation for future research in early hominin and ape systematics and paleobiology.

伟大的猿猴，人类及其祖先一直是大量研究的主题，但是关于他们共同的进化史，导致人类谱系和直立步行的出现，还有更多的了解。该项目旨在更准确地确定化石和活猿之间的关系，并使用这些信息更好地了解特征性猿和人类运动行为的演变，包括我们最近的化石祖先的发展。该项目具有更广泛的影响，包括生成大型解剖数据集，该数据集将可以自由访问以供将来使用，以及促进Co-Pi的生物人类学多样性，女性研究生和活跃的几个组织的活跃成员，旨在使年轻女孩在STEM领域中吸引年轻女孩。这项研究的主要目的是产生稳健的茎和冠状科的系统发育，以用作测试竞争性系统发育假设的基础，并探讨有关运动的极性，地理位置和进化时机的问题，以及使用祖先重新构造的伟大猿类和人类表征伟大的猿类和人的位置行为。角色将从头骨和颅后取样，特别是从颅后骨骼中包含新的定量和多态性特征。简约和贝叶斯方法将用于推断系统发育，并测量对竞争系统发育假设的相对支持。该项目代表了迄今为止对中新世的中新世类植物的最全面的系统发育分析，并将为未来的早期人类和猿类系统和古生物学研究提供必要的基础。