DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Systematics of Carex Section Ovales: The Challenge of Phylogeny at Fine Scales

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A grant has been awarded to Dr. Paul Berry and Mr. Andrew Hipp at the University of Wisconsin-Madison to study the evolutionary history of part of the largest group of flowering plants in the North American continent, namely the sedge genus Carex. The investigators will use several levels of DNA analysis to determine relationships at both broad and fine scales in the genus. Broad scale DNA sequence studies will determine the relationships of several major groups within Carex, which is an important wetland plant throughout the U.S., Europe, China, and Japan. Fine scale molecular studies will use DNA fingerprinting tools called AFLP analysis to determine relationships between closely related species. Besides clarifying the relationships within one of the world's largest and ecologically important groups of flowering plants, this study will evaluate and develop new methods for analyzing plant molecular data using the amplified fragment length polymorphism (AFLP) technique. This is a sort of genetic fingerprinting tool, but the interpretation of plant AFLP results so far is less advanced than in animal DNA analysis for medical or criminal purposes. More specifically, this study aims to improve the techniques designed to determine the proper genealogy in closely knit groups of plants. As such, they could have broad applications for studies of rare and endangered species and conservation biology in general.