Wayne, Flynn, and collaborators propose to provide the most detailed examination to date of relationships within the vertebrate order that includes mammalian carnivores such as cats, dogs, weasels, raccoons and seals. This effort represents the first attempt to document the relationship of all species in a moderately diverse mammal order. The researchers will produce a comprehensive relationship tree of several hundred species using DNA sequences of 33 genes that will form the basis for testing ideas about how and when various traits influencing carnivore behavior, ecology and function have evolved and been shaped by natural selection. Additionally, the proposal supports collection of morphologic data on living and extinct carnivores that will be combined with the DNA sequence data to test key ideas about evolutionary history. Along with the public-financed genome sequencing of the dog and partial sequencing of the cat, this study will add a comparative database of carnivore sequence data and provide an evolutionary perspective that will add a new dimension to interpreting the significance of sequence differences in humans and other mammals.
This project includes support for extensive training and inter-institutional exchange of the next generation of systematists, including three post-doctoral scientists, several graduate students and dozens of undergraduates. Further, the consortium of investigators and institutions collaborating in this project (5 universities, two museums, one governmental laboratory, plus international collaborators) are well situated to more deeply immerse K-12 students and teachers, and the general public, in the approaches and results of systematic biology research. Finally, the scientists will develop a multi-layer web site with empirical and analytical information and a traveling museum exhibit using carnivores to illustrate fundamental concepts in systematics.
