Reconstructing the lost cartilaginous epiphyses in extinct archosaurs' limbs

重建已灭绝的主龙四肢中丢失的软骨骨骺

• 批准号: EP/Y029356/1
• 负责人: John Hutchinson
• 金额: $ 23.84万
• 依托单位: Royal Veterinary College
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Fellowship
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2024 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=EP%2FY029356%2F1
• 关键词: Reconstructing; lost; cartilaginous; epiphyses; extinct; Reconstructing; lost; cartilaginous; epiphyses; extinct

Locomotion is among the most important function involved in tetrapod evolutionary success. Understanding how locomotion in current species evolved implies to study their fossil record. Evolutionary biomechanics tackles this topic, by estimating locomotor abilities of extinct organisms by observing their extant relatives. Particular efforts have been made to infer the locomotion in non- avian dinosaurs and other extinct archosaurs. However, as in most other tetrapods, archosaur limb bones have cartilaginous epiphyses that do not fossilise. This leads to high levels of uncertainty when conducting biomechanical analyses on such animals. Surprisingly, corrective strategies remained rather subjective and simplistic, failing to propose a robust way to account for missing cartilage. Here I propose to answer to this critical issue by concretely REconstructing the LOst CArTilaginous Epiphyses of extinct archosaurs, using cutting-edge quantitative methods. Focusing on the femur, the three-dimensional characteristics of a large sample of archosaurs will be used to estimate the missing epiphyses of fossil species. Subsequently to the study of modern morphological diversity, I will develop the protocol by assessing its accuracy to reconstruct epiphyses in a controlled virtual experimentation on extant species. I will also stress robustness to sampling variability to give the degree of confidence to put on the reconstruction. Finally, the impact of reconstructions will be tested by conducting a comparative biomechanical analysis. At the crossroads of quantitative vertebrate palaeontology, evolutionary biology and biomechanics, the project ambitions to develop the most objective and reliable way to date to reconstruct the lost epiphyses in extinct archosaurs. The unprecedented outcomes of the project should deeply impact inferences about how extinct archosaurs could locomote, and will open perspectives to generalise the approach to any other tetrapod group.

运动是四足动物进化成功涉及的最重要功能之一。了解当前物种的运动如何进化，这意味着研究其化石记录。进化生物力学通过观察其现存的亲戚来估计灭绝生物的运动能力来解决这一主题。已经采取了特殊的努力来推断非鸟类恐龙和其他灭绝的弓形虫的运动。但是，与大多数其他四足动物一样，Archosaur肢体的骨头具有无法化石的软骨骨。在对此类动物进行生物力学分析时，这会导致高水平的不确定性。令人惊讶的是，纠正策略仍然相当主观和简单，因此未能提出一种强大的方法来解释缺少软骨的方法。在这里，我建议通过使用尖端的定量方法重建灭绝的弓形虫的软骨epiphyses来回答这个关键问题。重点关注股骨，将使用大量大型船只样本的三维特征来估计化石物种丢失的epiphyses。随后，在对现代形态多样性的研究中，我将通过评估其准确性在现有物种的可控虚拟实验中重建表附子的准确性来开发该方案。我还将强调鲁棒性，以给予变异性，以使重建的信心程度。最后，将通过进行比较的生物力学分析来测试重建的影响。在定量脊椎动物古生物学，进化生物学和生物力学的十字路口中，该项目的野心是开发迄今为止最客观和可靠的方式，以重建灭绝的周期库中丢失的epiphyses。该项目的前所未有的结果应深刻影响有关灭绝的周围卫星的机动性的推论，并将开放对任何其他Tetrapod组的方法的看法。