Graduate student Jeffrey Jensen proposes a study of the marine percifom family Embiotocidae, an ecologically important component of the North Pacific nearshore fauna. The project will determine the evolutionary relationships among species in the family, and will document patterns of morphological variation in feeding structures. These functional variations will then be interpreted in the framework of their ecological roles and evolutionary histories. The proposed study has broad implications for evolutionary biology and functional studies. By combining functional, ecological, and evolutionary data, Mr. Jensen will gain insight into functional convergence between separate lineages, and the constraints placed on morphology by inheritance. The ease with which functional structures have changed to suit their ecological roles is an issue of interest across a wide spectrum of taxonomic groups, and this project will represent a noteworthy case study.
