RUI: Fine scale phylogenetic relationships in Lycieae (Solanaceae): A multilocus approach for understanding biogeography, polyploidy, and reproductive evolution

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The tomato family (Solanaceae) includes many wild species that are excellent models for understanding how plants reproduce, whether they hybridize, and how their genomes evolve. This project will develop new genetic markers and use them to study evolutionary relationships among species and populations in the tomato relative Lycium. Lycium is distributed throughout the world and has evolved many complex ways of breeding. This project combines studies in the field and in the lab to discover the history of species distributions worldwide and the evolution of sexual strategies in flowering plants. This work thus uses genomic resources developed for the economically important tomato family applies those to an evolutionary study. This research will also contribute significantly to undergraduate education and training by involving diverse students at various stages of their careers in all aspects of the project, including travels to collect plant materials and attendance to professional meetings to present their research. Students will be trained in molecular methods and sequence analysis, population genetics, and phylogenetic systematics and reproductive evolution. Contributions will be made to summer programs that provide training in molecular biology, systematics and genomics for high school science teachers, as well as to curricular development at Amherst College.