EAGER: Resolving the Evolutionary History of the Sunflower Family in the Face of Rampant Gene and Genome Duplications

尽管向日葵家族的成员广泛存在和培育，但人们对该群体内部的进化关系知之甚少。知识的缺乏阻碍了对家庭的生物学研究。该项目促进了对向日葵谱系关系的理解，同时也调查了导致其巨大成功的原因。向日葵科有25000多种，占当今地球上所有开花植物的10%。向日葵科植物是重要的农作物，包括向日葵、生菜、红花、洋蓟和菊苣。这个家族还包括一些世界上最有害的杂草（例如，knapweed，蓟）。该群体中的许多其他物种生活在世界上面临高灭绝率威胁的地区。该项目将产生基因组数据，以帮助解释基因组复制在家庭进化成功中的作用。该项目将训练学生掌握植物系统学和现代数据收集和分析方法。此外，该项目还将制作供初中和高中教师使用的教育工具。该项目将使用系统基因组学方法来研究大规模基因和基因组复制在向日葵家族（菊科）多样化中所起的作用，以及这可能在基因组规模数据产生的系统发生不一致中所起的混淆作用。拟议的研究将产生基因组和转录组数据，以检查大规模基因复制如何影响系统发育重建。这项研究将提供变革性的信息，可能适用于其他大型、多样化的生物谱系，特别是当基因树和物种树方法之间存在强烈的不一致时，以及在发现大规模或全基因组重复的情况下。这些数据将揭示重复对谱系多样性和不一致的潜在原因的影响，并为理解面对大量基因重复的进化关系提供了第一步。

Despite the widespread occurrence and cultivation of members of the sunflower family, evolutionary relationships within the group are poorly understood. The lack of knowledge has hampered biological research in the family. This project advances the understanding of the genealogical relationships among sunflowers, while also investigating the reasons that have led to its great success. The sunflower family contains more than 25,000 species, representing 10% of all flowering plants on Earth today. Species within the sunflower family are important agricultural crops including sunflower, lettuce, safflower, artichoke, and chicory. The family also includes some of the world's most noxious weeds (e.g., knapweeds, thistles). Many other species in the group occur in areas of the world that are threatened with high extinction rates. This project will generate genomic data to help explain the role of genome duplication in the evolutionary success of the family. The project will train students in plant systematics and modern methods of data collection and analysis. Additionally, the project will produce educational tools for use by middle and high school teachers. This project will use a phylogenomics approach to investigate the role that large-scale gene and genome duplications have played in the diversification of the sunflower family (Compositae) and what confounding role this may play in resulting discordance among phylogenies produced from genome-scale data. The proposed research will generate genomic and transcriptomic data to examine how large-scale gene duplications influence phylogeny reconstruction. This research will provide transformative information that may be applicable to other large, diverse lineages of organisms especially when strong discordance amongst gene tree and species tree methods is reported and where large-scale or whole genome duplications are found. The data will shed light on the influence of duplications on both lineage diversity and potential causes of discordance and provide a first step toward understanding evolutionary relationships in the face of large amounts of gene duplication.