CAREER: Unearthing the conifer tree of death

植物已经在陆地环境中生存了4亿多年，经历了气候变化，生物多样性变化以及大陆的形成和分裂。我们对全球变化如何影响植物进化历史的理解仍然有限。该项目包括一个综合的研究和教育计划，将调查广泛和古老的植物群，称为针叶树，其中包括今天最高的（红杉）和最长寿的（松树）生物体，在过去的3亿年中进化以应对不断变化的地球。研究结果将帮助我们更好地了解现代植物区系的起源，以及它们如何受到持续全球变化的影响。为了推进这些科学目标，扩大科学参与，促进植物生物学知识，该项目包括一个新的植物结构研究课程，多个职业阶段的研究培训，以及在堪萨斯大学自然历史博物馆的永久公开展览。PI和一个本科生，研究生和博士后团队将重建现存和灭绝的针叶树的进化史，通过深入时间调查多样化动态，并测试针叶树生殖结构的进化和同源性的假设。这些分析将利用部分从一个新的课程为基础的本科生研究经验发育植物解剖学产生的数据。一个系统发育将推断形态和分子数据的基础上，并使用各种系统发育方法。发散时间将被估计，直接纳入化石。进化速率（物种形成，灭绝和表型进化）将使用系统发育和化石出现为基础的方法进行估计。还将研究进化速率转变的潜在环境和生物驱动因素。最后，比较解剖学和发育解剖学将被用来测试种子轴承球果的同源性假说，并阐明模式和过程的生殖进化的针叶树。这项工作将有助于我们理解植物的进化，提供新的见解多样化动态在深时间，解决长期存在的问题，在植物形态，并教育新一代的科学家在植物结构，进化，该奖项反映了NSF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。

Plants have populated terrestrial environments for over 400 million years, through changing climates, shifting biotas, and the creation and breakup of continents. Our understanding of how global changes have impacted the evolutionary history of plants through time remains limited. This project encompasses an integrated research and education program that will investigate how the widespread and ancient group of plants known as conifers, which includes the tallest (redwoods) and longest-lived (pines) organisms today, evolved over the last 300 million years in response to a changing planet. Results will help us to better understand the origins of our modern floras and how they might be impacted by ongoing global change. To advance these scientific goals, broaden participation in science, and promote knowledge of plant biology, the project includes a new research-based course in plant structure, research training at multiple career stages, and a permanent public exhibit at the University of Kansas Natural History Museum.The PI and a team of undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs will reconstruct the phylogeny of living and extinct conifers, investigate diversification dynamics through deep time, and test hypotheses on the evolution and homology of conifer reproductive structures. These analyses will utilize data generated in part from a new course-based undergraduate research experience on developmental plant anatomy. A phylogeny will be inferred based on both morphological and molecular data, and using a variety of phylogenetic methods. Divergence times will be estimated that directly incorporate fossils. Evolutionary rates (of speciation, extinction, and phenotypic evolution) will be estimated using both phylogenetic and fossil occurrence-based approaches. Potential environmental and biological drivers of evolutionary rate shifts will also be investigated. Finally, comparative and developmental anatomy will be used to test homology hypotheses of seed-bearing cones and to elucidate patterns and processes underlying reproductive evolution in conifers. This work will contribute to our understanding of plant phylogeny, provide new insights into diversification dynamics in deep time, address a longstanding problem in plant morphology, and educate a new generation of scientists in plant structure, evolution, and the scientific process.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.