Collaborative Research: Gene Flow Across a Landscape mosaic: Biogeography and Domestication in Stenocereus Stellatus (Cactaceae)

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Globally, ecosystems reflect the technological innovations, economic constraints, and cultural aspirations of their human inhabitants. Plant domestication - cultivation of a narrow genetic pool and extraction from wild populations - can have negative effects for plant species in a human impacted landscape. Alternatively, human management can enhance diversity, for instance, through exchange of crop landraces or hybridization. This project will investigate the process of plant domestication and its impact on diversity and gene flow in cultivated and wild populations. The cactus, Stenocereus stellatus, provides an ideal opportunity to study these processes because it is actively under domestication within traditional agriculture systems in Central Mexico. This study will use genetic and morphologic characters to estimate patterns of diversity within S. stellatus, measure gene movement, and describe historic biogeographic patterns of S. stellatus and the role that human cultures may have had in creating those patterns. This research will further our understanding of agrobiodiversity, plant domestication, and the geography of human-plant interactions. Results can be applied towards management of biodiversity within the socioeconomic context of developing countries. This project is part of an international collaboration and will support scientific training and exchange for undergraduate and graduate students in the United States and Mexico.