Systematics and Phylogeny of Arabidopsis

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Arabidopsis thaliana, or commonly known as mouse-ear cress, a small European weed of the mustard family, to which the cabbages, Brussel sprouts, broccoli, cauliflower, and radishes belong, has become the model flowering plant in basic studies of classical and molecular biology. Thousands of biologists are working on this organism to understand many fundamental biological processes. Worldwide interest in mouse-ear cress stems from the fact that this organism has the smallest and simplest genome among flowering plants, has a generation time of four to six weeks, and has a small size to 30 cm high (because of its small size, dozens can be grown in a small pot and several hundred thousands in a small room). These and several other attributes make the plant ideal for basic studies in biology. Yet the very basic information on Arabidopsis, especially on its nearest relatives, limits, number of species, and various aspects of its individual species is almost non-existent. To understand the origin of this organism, basic systematic studies on the genus are urgently needed, and living material of all taxa should be made available. The proposed research is designed to address these very problems. Intensive field work will be done in central Asia, especially the adjacent portions of China, Pakistan, India, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan, which represent the center of greatest diversity of the genus. Seed collections will be deposited at the Arabidopsis Biological Resource Center at Ohio State, where they will be made available to botanists worldwide. Extensive systematic studies based on herbarium material from more than 80 herbaria will be conducted, and detailed studies on the morphology, reproductive biology, cytology, seed anatomy, and chemistry of Arabidopsis and its relatives will be done. The proposed two-year grant will result in a systematic study of Arabidopsis and will provide the scientific community with much needed living material of the various species including mouse-ear cress.