Dissertation Research: Phylogeny of the Vittariaceae Ferns

研究生埃德蒙起重机，在监督下， 爱荷华州的顾问乔纳森·温德尔和唐纳德·法拉尔 大学，旨在澄清物种的分类学界定 和属的热带蕨类植物科书带蕨科，并推断一个 这些类群之间的关系的系统发育框架。 的 系统发育研究将集中在形态特征， 这些蕨类植物和叶绿体基因的DNA序列数据。 的 蕨类植物大多是热带附生植物，很少有人研究这一群体， 物种内部和物种之间的DNA变异。 地理 离群者包括奇怪的“阿巴拉契亚配子体”， 阿巴拉契亚，这是广泛分布在美国东部，但发现 仅作为无性系、无性系单倍体阶段或配子体， 在野外已知的有性二倍体孢子形成阶段。 基因 来自代表广泛蕨类植物的样品的序列数据 家庭将被分析，以确定可能的家谱 书带蕨科在薄囊蕨中的地位。 的 家庭间分析的结果将用于评估 可能是书带蕨科中形态特征的衍生。 形态学和分子数据集都将被整合到 这些植物进化路径的解释。

Graduate student Edmund Crane, under the supervision of advisers Jonathan Wendel and Donald Farrar at Iowa State University, seeks to clarify the taxonomic delimitation of species and genera in the tropical fern family Vittariaceae and to infer a phylogenetic framework for the relationships among these taxa. The phylogenetic study will focus both on morphological features of these ferns and on DNA sequence data from chloroplast genes. The ferns are mostly tropical epiphytes, a group little studied with respect to DNA variation within and among species. Geographic outliers include the strange "Appalachian gametophyte," Vittaria appalachiana, which is widespread in the eastern U.S. but found solely as the asexual, clonal haploid stage or gametophyte and not known in the wild in the sexual, diploid spore-forming stage. Gene sequence data from samples representing a wide range of fern families will be analyzed to determine the likely genealogical position of the Vittariaceae among the leptosporangiate ferns. The results of the interfamily analysis will then be used to assess the likely derivation of morphological traits within the Vittariaceae. Both morphological and molecular datasets will be integrated in the interpretation of evolutionary pathways in these plants.