CAREER: Integrating natural history collections to explore the functional morphology and evolution of the parent-offspring conflict in mosses

这个项目将通过一套综合的研究和教育活动，增进对亲子冲突演变的了解。这种冲突是一个惊人的悖论，在生命之树上无处不在。父母必须平衡有限资源的投资，一方面在早期发育阶段为后代提供生存和成熟的机会，另一方面为自己的生存和未来的繁殖保留资源。本项目的主要研究目的是探讨不同物种调节亲子冲突的适应性。苔藓植物是研究这种冲突的理想系统，因为它们的后代在其一生中仍然在身体上依附于亲本植物并在营养上依赖于亲本植物，并且涉及亲子冲突的结构因物种而异。在这个项目中进行的研究和教育活动将为不同群体的学生提供培训和学习机会。这项工作的教育部分将在田纳西大学诺克斯维尔分校（UTK）的一门引人入胜的5月学期课程中，将本科生带入自然历史收藏的实地和幕后，实地收集和基于标本的研究将是课程的重要组成部分。课程的经验和数据将用于为UTK 3-12年级的教育项目、校园自然历史收藏和当地公共植物园构建教育模块和活动。本研究将采用一种创新的综合方法，利用野外采集的植物和自然历史标本，对功能形态学、生理学和进化进行比较分析，以了解导致物种间调节亲本-后代资源分配的不同适应过程。一系列相互关联的假说将通过不同的苔藓物种进行比较测试，以加深对亲子冲突对植物生存、适应性和最终进化的影响的理解。该项目还将生成一个强大的、全球采样的苔藓系统发育，以重建形态进化模式，并测试影响亲子冲突的结构之间的相关性。该研究将为今后苔藓生物多样性的研究奠定基础，并将提高我们对植物亲代关系的认识和理解。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

This project will increase understanding of the evolution of the parent-offspring conflict through an integrated set of research and education activities. This conflict is a striking paradox that is pervasive across the tree of life. Parents must balance the investment of limited resources between provisioning their offspring during early development to increase their chances for survival and maturation, and reserving resources for their own survival and future reproduction. The primary research aim of this project is to investigate the adaptations that regulate the parent-offspring conflict across diverse species. Moss plants are an ideal system to study this conflict since their offspring remain physically attached to and nutritionally dependent on the parental plant throughout their lifespan and the structures involved in the parent-offspring conflict vary across species. The research and education activities undertaken in this project will provide training and learning opportunities for a diverse group of students. The education components of this work will bring undergraduate students into the field and behind the scenes of natural history collections during an engaging May-term course at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville (UTK), where field collections and specimen-based research will be essential components of the class. Experiences and data from the course will then be used to build educational modules and activities for UTK’s grades 3-12 education programs, on campus natural history collections, and local public botanical gardens.This research will use an innovative and integrated approach that incorporates comparative analyses of functional morphology, physiology, and evolution using field-collected plants and natural history specimens to understand the processes that have led to diverse adaptations for regulating parental-offspring resource allocation across species. An interconnected set of hypotheses examining functional morphology and physiology will be tested comparatively using sets of diverse moss species to deepen understanding of the influence of the parent-offspring conflict on survival, fitness, and ultimately evolution of plants. This project will also generate a robust, globally sampled moss phylogeny in order to reconstruct patterns of morphological evolution and test for correlations between structures influencing the parent-offspring conflict. This research will lay the groundwork for future biodiversity studies in mosses, and will improve our knowledge and understanding of parent-offspring relationships broadly across plants.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.