DISSERTATION RESEARCH: A Cytogenetic Characterization of the Mimulus Guttatus Genome

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Changes in chromosome structure and composition are an essential feature of genome evolution and also contribute to speciation in many organisms. Despite the prevalence of karyotypic (chromosomal) changes, the evolutionary forces that produce and maintain these mutations are poorly understood. The proposed studies will provide a description of chromosome structure for an emerging model system used in plant evolutionary research?Mimulus guttatus (yellow monkeyflower). The first aim is to produce the ?karyotype? for this species, i.e. the physical description of the 14 chromosome pairs. The second aim is to integrate the distinct genomic maps that have been produced by physical information and by genetic recombination of markers. The third aim of this research is to investigate a specific inversion, which is a kind of mutation that affects a large region of a chromosome, in natural populations. These studies will have broad impacts on the Mimulus research community. There has been extensive development of genomic methods for Mimulus, but the study of genome structure has lagged behind. Given the widespread karyotype evolution within Mimulus, the advancement of methods developed for this project will open entirely new avenues of genetic research. As the project progresses, methods will be disseminated to undergraduates, graduate students, post-docs, and faculty via publications, scientific meetings, and direct tutorials.