Collaborative Research: RUI: A Phylogenomic Study of a Hyper-Diverse Flowering Plant Lineage, Subfamily Lamioideae (Lamiaceae)

理解导致物种形成的进化过程仍然是生物学的一个基本挑战。唇形科（Lamiaceae）是世界上第六大开花植物科，在生态学、民族植物学和植物区系学上都具有重要意义。在薄荷家族中，第二大亚科，唇形科薄荷（Lamioideae），作为一个很好的模式，探索植物多样化和进化辐射的全球模式，或在一个分支中的物种数量的快速增加。这项研究将使用高通量DNA测序技术，以建立一个强大的理解在lamioid薄荷的进化关系。该项目的发现将对系统学家，进化生物学家和生态学家具有广泛的价值，有助于缩小我们对植物如何多样化的基本理解的差距，包括早期开花植物的进化和新形成的栖息地的殖民化，如火山岛。从这个项目中收集的信息也将提高我们的知识的比较生物学的唇形薄荷，指导新产品的发现，并在濒危物种的保护措施的发展援助。该项目包括在多个层次的教育和职业培训的广泛机会，包括高中教师，本科生，博士后研究员，和早期职业女性教师。该项目团队将提供有关唇形科薄荷的公开研讨会，突出他们的研究成果和更广泛的影响。该项目的一个重要组成部分是培训和指导本科生，来自密苏里州西部州立大学的12名本科生将积极参与该项目的各个方面。层状薄荷，已被归类为13个部落，有一个几乎世界性的分布，与大多数分类群发现在旧世界和只有两个血统已殖民新世界和夏威夷群岛。尽管这种广泛的分布和多样性，一个坚实的基因组框架的lamioid薄荷，从多样化的模式和链接到分布，生态和基因组动态的变化，可以探索，仍然缺乏。该项目将利用下一代测序方法，包括有针对性的富集，转录组学和广泛的分类学采样，从美国各地的现场和标本馆建立一个强大的系统发育平台的唇形科薄荷。主要目标如下：1）界定Lamioideae的主要分支及其相互关系，并进行必要的分类学修改，包括确定新大陆成员Stachydeae和Synandelae两个族以及基本族Gomphostemateae和Pogostemoneae的位置; 2）估计关键进化事件的时间和多样化的速度; 3）将Lamioideae中的多样性，特别是在Stachydeae和Synanderae中，与植物地理学，全基因组和基因复制的变化联系起来，和性格特征进化，以确定可能的关键创新和明显的重复进化的形态特征。这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持，通过评估使用基金会的学术价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

Understanding the evolutionary processes that lead to speciation remains a fundamental challenge in biology. As the sixth largest flowering plant family, the mint family (Lamiaceae) is exceptionally important ecologically, ethnobotanically, and floristically. Within the mint family, the second largest subfamily, the lamioid mints (Lamioideae), serves as an excellent model for exploring global patterns of plant diversification and evolutionary radiation, or a rapid increase in the number of species in a clade. This research will use high throughput DNA sequencing technologies to build a robust understanding of evolutionary relationships in the lamioid mints. The findings from this project will be of broad value to systematists, evolutionary biologists, and ecologists by helping close gaps in our fundamental understanding of how plants diversify, including the evolution of early flowering plants and colonization of newly formed habitats, such as volcanic islands. Information gathered from this project will also improve our knowledge of the comparative biology of lamioid mints, guide new product discovery, and aid in the development of conservation measures for endangered species. This project incorporates extensive opportunities for education and career training at multiple levels, including high school teachers, undergraduate students, a postdoctoral researcher, and an early-career female faculty. The project team will offer public seminars about lamioid mints, highlighting their research findings and broader implications. An important component of this project is to train and mentor undergraduate students, and twelve undergraduate students from Missouri Western State University will become actively involved in various aspects of this project.The lamioid mints, which have been categorized into 13 tribes, have a near cosmopolitan distribution, with most taxa found in the Old World and only two lineages having colonized the New World and Hawaiian Islands. Despite this widespread distribution and diversity, a solid phylogenomic framework of the lamioid mints, from which patterns of diversification and links to shifts in distribution, ecology, and genome dynamics can be explored, is still lacking. This project will utilize next-generation sequencing approaches involving targeted enrichment, transcriptomics, and broad taxonomic sampling from field and herbaria across the US to build a robust phylogenetic platform of the lamioid mints. The following major goals will be accomplished: 1) Circumscribe the major clades of Lamioideae and their interrelationships and make necessary taxonomic changes, including determining the placement of the two tribes comprising New World members, Stachydeae and Synandreae, and the basal tribes, Gomphostemmateae and Pogostemoneae; 2) Estimate the timing of key evolutionary events and rates of diversification; 3) Link diversifications in Lamioideae, particularly within Stachydeae and Synandreae, with shifts in biogeography, whole genome and gene duplication, and character trait evolution to identify possible key innovations and apparent repeated evolution of morphological characters.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.