H2020Индивидуална стипендия2015–2018

MYSTICETI · The oldest and the rarest - combining insight from both hemispheres to gain a global picture of baleen whale origins and macroevolution

„Хоризонт 2020“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2015-11-16 → 2018-11-15
Финансиране от ЕС: 264 780 €
Участници: 2
Схема: MSCA-IF-GF

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Накратко на български

Еволюцията на филтрационното хранене при китовете се проучва чрез анализ на фосили от Южното полукълбо и най-малкия съществуващ вид – джджункий кит. Това помага да се разбере как и защо тези животни са достигнали сегашните си огромни размери.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

The oldest and the rarest - combining insight from both hemispheres to gain a global picture of baleen whale origins and macroevolution

Cetaceans (whales and dolphins) are a spectacular example of secondary adaptation of vertebrates to aquatic life. Whales, in particular, are the largest animals on Earth, and play key ecological roles as ecosystem engineers. They owe their success to their highly specialised and efficient way of feeding: unlike most other mammals, whales have no teeth, and instead use baleen – an array of comb-like plates suspended from their upper jaws – to filter vast quantities of tiny prey directly from seawater. How filter feeding evolved, and what role it played in whale evolution, remains a key questions of marine mammal evolution. This project combines cutting-edge techniques with functional, behavioural, molecular and morphological observations to investigate how, when and why whales whales acquired their unique filter feeding strategy, and what role this transition played in making them the leviathans we know today. Historically, the study of marine mammals has often focused on species and fossils from the Northern Hemisphere, reflecting its longer history of research and higher population density. To obtain a more global data set, this project specifically focuses on previously undersampled areas, animals and time periods. These include major Southern Hemisphere localities in Australia, New Zealand and Peru, all of which have yielded numerous, yet still largely undescribed fossils; the enigmatic pygmy right whale, Caperea marginata, which is the smallest of the living whales, and only occurs in southern seas; and the earliest phase of whale evolution, lasting from ca 35 to 25 million years.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз

Цел на проекта

Baleen whales (Mysticeti), the largest animals on earth, are a spectacular example of evolutionary adaptation and, as predators and nutrient distributors, a major component of the modern ocean ecosystem. Their relatively good fossil record, large ecological impact and the existence of extant species as a source of comparative data make mysticetes an ideal macroevolutionary case study – promising fundamental insights into the interaction between biodiversity, evolution, and the physical environment. Previous research into the mode and tempo of baleen whale evolution has been hampered by a historical data bias towards the Northern Hemisphere, poor taxon sampling, and disjunct methodologies. I propose to address these issues through (1) targeted sampling of Southern Hemisphere fossil material to create the most comprehensive and most balanced dataset on mysticete morphology to date; (2) the application of cutting-edge phylogenetic methods, including new Bayesian techniques to simultaneously infer phylogeny, divergence dates, evolutionary rates and ancestral body size; (3) reconstructing past mysticete diversity, disparity (morphological diversity) and shifts in their rate of diversification, as well as ancestral geographic ranges and dispersal patterns; and (4) integrating all available data and results with palaeoenvironmental proxies to test whether mysticete evolution has been driven by environmental change. This project will create a benchmark for future studies as one of the most comprehensive and multifaceted macroevolutionary syntheses for any major vertebrate clade, and provide profound insights into evolutionary processes and the workings of the marine ecosystem.

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

INSTITUT ROYAL DES SCIENCES NATURELLES DE BELGIQUE · Bruxelles / BrusselКоординаторБелгия
MONASH UNIVERSITY · VictoriaАвстралия