Daten zum Projekt
Initiative: | Forschung in Museen |
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Ausschreibung: | Kooperative Forschungsprojekte mittlere Museen |
Bewilligung: | 20.02.2014 |
Laufzeit: | 1 Jahr |
Projektinformationen
Knowing the phylogenetic position of an organism is one of the most basic points for the understanding of its biology and evolution. Europasaurus holgeri Mateus et al., 2006 is a peculiar dwarfed form of sauropod dinosaurs, which otherwise constitute the largest land animals that ever lived on this planet. Europasaurus thus gives us the possibility to study major transitions in body size from truly gigantic animals like Brachiosaurus to such relatively small-sized forms as Europasaurus in geologically short time intervals. Thereby we learn how and why such changes may occur. A firm phylogenetic framework is however crucial, but agreement on the position of Europasaurus has not yet been reached. In recent phylogenetic analyses, the dwarfed sauropod has been switching position between Brachiosauridae or a position more close to the genus Camarasaurus from North America. The project provides a phylogenetic analysis of Camarasaurus and thereby clarifies the systematic position of Europasaurus.
Projektbeteiligte
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Dr. Oliver Wings
Niedersächsisches Landesmuseum
Fachbereich Naturkunde
Hannover
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Dr. Emanuel Tschopp
Universidade Nova de Lisboa
Faculdade de Ciências e Tecnologia
Caparica
Portugal