Dissertation Research: Biogeography and Evolutionary Genetics of Stenocereus (Cactaceae)

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Graduate student Cornejo proposes to study the tropical columnar cactus genus Stenocereus using protein electrophoresis methods in order to reconstruct species-level evolutionary relationships. Flies of the genus Drosophila and species of yeast are associated with particular cactus species, and this cactus-fly-yeast system has been the subject of previous ecological and evolutionary study. Approximately 20 species of these cacti are distributed on both sides of the Panamanian Ishthmus and through the Caribbean, and the group's biogeographic history is in question. The proposed research on the evolutionary history of the cacti will allow comparisons with those already known for the yeast and Drosphila associated with the cactus. The proposed research will test important hypotheses concerning the evolutionary and biogeographic history of the cacti, and will open a new area of research on coevolutionary processes involving other groups. Alternate hypotheses will be tested, and the results will hold interest for a wide audience of botanists, biogeographers, and evolutionary biologists.