When NESCent closes in July 2015, we will deposit in the Duke Institutional Repository an archive of the digital artifacts that resulted from the scientific projects, activities, and operations of the Center. The major public component of this archive will be an inventory of all NESCent projects and associated products. This is a sample of the type of information that will be listed for each project.
Feeding, critical to survival, is an integrated function involving numerous craniofacial structures. Changes in these structures are a significant part of the evolution and diversification of mammals. Our understanding of mammalian craniofacial evolution rests, in part, on functional studies of the motor patterns of craniofacial muscles during feeding, and of the movements and forces within the feeding apparatus. A number of researchers have collected large data sets of motor patterns of feeding muscles and the associated movements and forces from the jaws and hyolaryngeal apparatus. Such data address fundamental questions about the evolution, functional morphology, and development of the mammalian head. Despite significant datasets and collegiality amongst workers, inter-specific studies of neuromotor evolution are rare because of the lack of a master database. The overarching goal of the working group is to develop a database of physiologic data on feeding in mammals through three specific aims: (1) combine existing EMG, kinematic, and bone strain data for at least 36 mammalian species in 10 orders into a database; (2) generate operational strategies for studying key scientific questions about neuromotor evolution and constraint, craniofacial evolution, and feeding behavior with the database; (3) test hypotheses about the evolution and conservation of motor pattern in mammals. This will be the first major database of neuromuscular data to be constructed. It will be a significant tool for studying the evolution of the mammalian feeding apparatus, and will be a model for future study of the evolution of functional systems and neuromotor evolution.
Software and Datasets
Publications
Proposals and Grants
Presentations
A number of independent efforts have compiled global plant databases on functionally important traits of leaves, stems, seeds, and flowers. These databases are comprised of 1000's to tens of 1000's of species. With a few notable exceptions, they have not been analyzed in an evolutionary or phylogenetic context. However, when synthesized with a modern molecular phylogeny, these data could tell a comprehensive, multivariate story of the evolution of plant functional diversity. In this working group, we will merge multiple databases to explore the rate (tempo, sensu GG Simpson) of evolution of these traits and the best fit evolutionary model(s) (mode) underlying the trait diversification of land plants. We will ask 1. whether important divergences in trait space occurred along similar branches for different traits, 2. whether there were periods of evolution when trait diversification was especially rapid, and 3. whether there were interactions between trait evolution and rates of speciation and extinction. This work will lead to a new community resource of great interest—an internally synced trait matrix—matched with the current state-of-the-art phylogeny. These data can then be synthesized with fossil evidence to explore whether the tempo and mode of trait evolution in extant and extinct taxa provide similar stories. Furthermore, these data will provide a powerful view into the coordinated (or lack thereof) evolution of ecologically important traits across vascular plants—one of the most diverse and important lineages in the world today.
Publications