Genomics of adaptation in aquatic flowering plants Potamogeton

水生植物(藻类和大型植物)是海洋和淡水生态系统的重要组成部分，为许多物种提供食物来源和栖息地。大型植物已经获得了在水中生活的特殊适应能力，因为它们已经在陆地植物分支中进化了多次。尽管水生开花植物的重要性和潜力揭示了它们适应水下生活的基因组基础，但从生物系统学和基因组学的角度来看，对它们的研究仍然很少。这种研究的匮乏在淡水大型植物中尤为突出，因为咸水海草最近引起了植物遗传学家的注意。在这个项目中，我们的目的是描述水生开花植物金缕梅属植物对淡水的适应的进化史和基因组学。这不仅为比较淡水适应与咸水海草适应的基因组学提供了机会，而且使研究在全基因组复制或多倍化之后的植物基因组进化成为可能。大约一半的钾藻物种是具有相同起源的多倍体，这使得这个系统在研究多倍化在进化和物种形成中的作用方面具有独特的吸引力。通过研究钾藻物种特定谱系的基因组变化，我们将描述全基因组复制事件后物种形成爆发的遗传基础以及特定谱系环境对这种基因组变化的影响。在研究海草属的核心基因组时，我们将能够描述植物对淡水和咸水的具体适应情况。

Aquatic plants (algae and macrophytes) are critical components of marine and freshwater ecosystems, providing food sources and habitats for many species. Macrophytes have acquired special adaptations to live in water, as they have evolved multiple times in terrestrial plant clades. Despite their significance and potential to reveal the genomic basis of adaptation to life under water, aquatic flowering plants remain vastly understudied from a biosystematics and genomics perspective. This dearth of research is especially prominent for freshwater macrophytes, as saltwater seagrasses have recently caught the eye of plant geneticists. In this project, we aim to describe the evolutionary history and the genomics of adaptation to freshwater in the aquatic flowering plant genus Potamogeton. This will facilitate not only an opportunity for comparing the genomics of freshwater adaptation to adaptation in saltwater seagrasses, but also permit studies of plant genome evolution after a whole-genome duplication or polyploidization. About half of Potamogeton species are polyploids with a shared origin, which makes this system uniquely attractive to study the role of polyploidization in evolution and speciation. Investigating lineage-specific genomic changes in Potamogeton species we will describe the genetic basis of the speciation burst after the whole-genome duplication event and the effects of the lineage-specific environments on such genomic changes. When investigating the core genome of the Potamogeton genus, which stays intact regardless of the species, and comparing it to seagrass genomes, we will be able to describe specific freshwater and saltwater adaptations in plants.