Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Paleopolploidy on Genome Composition and Evolution in Agavaceae

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Whole genome duplication, or polyploidy, is an important phenomenon in evolution and has been characterized in several different lineages including vertebrates, fungi and land plants. Polyploidy is especially prevalent in flowering plants where most, if not all, species have had a genome duplication event at some point in their evolutionary history. Analyses of protein-coding DNA sequences and chromosome size variation suggest that the origin and early diversification of the flowering plant family Agavaceae may have been spurred by genome duplication. This study will utilize high-throughput sequencing of hundreds of genes in species representing all major lineages in Agavaceae to test this hypothesis, and to assess how divergence in gene content and gene function have influenced speciation and chromosomal evolution.The findings of this study will contribute to a growing understanding of factors influencing the fate of duplicate genes following whole genome duplication events. In addition, the project includes a substantial training component. The research will employ state-of-the-art gene capture, sequencing and computational technologies. Undergraduates will be trained in these technologies and will learn how to perform comparative genetic analyses.