H2020Индивидуална стипендия2018–2020

AMBER · Dating fossils with molecules – innovative approach to determine the age of Baltic AMBER

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

Период: 2018-09-01 → 2020-08-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 147 296 €
Участници: 2
Схема: MSCA-IF-GF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Балтийският кехлибар и затворените в него насекоми се анализират чрез ДНК и морфология, за да се определи точната им възраст. Това помага за възстановяване на еволюционните събития и климатичните промени по време на еоцена.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

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

Резултати накратко

Dating fossils with molecules – innovative approach to determine the age of Baltic AMBER

Baltic amber from Northern Europe is an outstanding deposit due to the high diversity of well-preserved inclusions, mostly insects. Although it is one of the richest sources of fossils, science has consistently failed to define its geological age, despite applying various traditional approaches. There are several hypotheses concerning the age of Baltic amber, which is generally dated as Eocene, with an age range between 55 and 34 Ma. Difficulties in the age determination are essentially due to the repeated re-deposition of the amber, the broad range of the ancient forest, and its probable existence for several million years. It limits the scientific value of all Baltic amber fossils in evolutionary divergence time estimation. This is very unfortunate, especially because these fossils would be very important for reconstructing evolutionary events in the Eocene, which was a period of dynamic climate, with several warming and cooling events and is considered as a deep-time analogue of current climatic changes. The core idea of my project was to apply an innovative approach of precise dating for this very important fossil deposit by using DNA, the morphology of extinct and extant species within the framework of advanced Bayesian statistics. Information contained in DNA sequences together with the morphology of both extinct and extant taxa allowed for estimating phylogenetically the age of fossils from Baltic amber, and thus the amber itself. I used a dataset from my previous project as a basis and expanded it with fossils from Cenozoic deposits worldwide. The main result of the project is developing a method for estimating the age of fossil deposits using a total-evidence phylogenetic approach. This new approach has been used to establish the age of Baltic amber deposits. The knowledge of the age of the Baltic amber fossils could be of use in e.g. evolutionary biology, palaeoecology, biogeography, and palaeoclimatology. It gives us an insight into the ecosystems' response to the dynamic climate changes that took place in the Eocene and shaped out the recent biota.

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

Цел на проекта

Baltic amber from Northern Europe is an outstanding deposit due to the great number and diversity of preserved organisms. Although it is the richest source of fossils ever, science has consistently failed to define its geological age, despite applying various traditional approaches. It limits the scientific utility of all Baltic amber fossils in evolutionary divergence time estimation. This is very unfortunate, especially because these fossils would be very important for reconstructing evolutionary events in the Eocene, which is known as a deep-time analogue of current climatic changes. The core idea of this project is to apply an innovative and highly promising approach of precise dating for this very important fossil deposit by using DNA, morphology of extinct and extant species, and powerful statistics. I propose to time-calibrate Baltic amber fossils using a dataset from my previous project with the addition of Baltic amber and other, well-dated Cenozoic fossils. With these data, I will apply an existing method for divergence time estimation, the total-evidence dating under the fossilized birth–death process with its extension. The extension of the method will allow for phylogenetic estimation of the age of fossils from Baltic amber, and thus the amber itself. Firmly establishing the age of Baltic amber fossils will be a breakthrough for evolutionary biology, palaeoecology, biogeography, and palaeoclimatology. The project builds on my experience as a palaeoentomologist and evolutionary biologist, and it greatly expands my horizons as a future leader through gaining new insights and learning new facts and analytical methods, working in multidisciplinary academic environments and acquiring additional skills transferrable to new scientific areas. The hosts are the leading specialists in statistical phylogenetics and palaeontological studies, and leaders of dynamic research groups targeting different methods for understanding evolutionary patterns and processes

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

UNIWERSYTET GDANSKI · GDANSKКоординаторПолша
IOWA STATE UNIVERSITY OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY · AmesСъединени щати