Genomic and phylogenetic approaches for investigating plant biodiversity and evolution

我的研究计划的一个主要重点是重建陆地植物的深层和最近的系统发育（系谱）关系，这些生物是陆地生态学的基础。我们的系统发育分析和比较基因组方法将提供一个多学科的框架，以促进我们对植物主要进化转变的理解，使我们能够在分子水平上表征物种边界，并使我们能够将基因组数据与生物体生物学联系起来。我们将使用跨类群转录组比较作为一种创新的方法来研究植物进化中的主要转变。我们还将挖掘转录组数据集，开发和应用核基因标记，在一个新的早期“模式植物”系统，Trithuria（Hydatellaceae）的本地系统发育关系和物种边界的详细研究。这些水生植物的关键进化位置，分支接近开花植物的起源，将有助于预测整个开花植物的基因功能和进化。最后，我们将解决解决我们对单子叶植物泽泻目（Alismatales）的生殖发育的理解中的弱点，泽泻目是一个主要的陆地植物群，主要生活在水生栖息地，包括我们的沿海环境。我们将使用大规模的调查，整个质体基因组，以获得强大的，密集采样的系统发育框架，这一重要的植物群体。拟议的工作包括为学生提供相当多的新培训机会，包括为本科生研究人员提供生物信息学/基因组学项目。

A major focus of my research program is to reconstruct deep and recent phylogenetic (genealogical) relationships of the land plants, the organisms that underpin terrestrial ecology. Our phylogenetic analysis and comparative genomic approaches will provide a multidisciplinary framework to facilitate our understanding of major evolutionary transitions in plants, allow us to characterize species boundaries at a molecular level, and permit us to connect genomic data back to organismal biology. We will use cross-taxon transcriptome comparisons as an innovative approach to study major transitions in plant evolution. We will also mine transcriptome data sets to develop and apply nuclear-gene markers for detailed studies of local phylogenetic relationships and species boundaries in a novel early 'model plant' system, Trithuria (Hydatellaceae). The key evolutionary position of these aquatic plants, which branched close to the origin of the flowering plants, will facilitate predictions of gene function and evolution across the flowering plants as a whole. Finally, we will resolve resolving weaknesses in our understanding of the phylogeny of the monocot order Alismatales, a major land plant group that lives mostly in aquatic habitats, including our coastal environments. We will use large-scale surveys of whole plastid genomes to derive robust, densely sampled phylogenetic frameworks for this important group of plants. The proposed work includes considerable new training opportunities for students, including bioinformatic/ phylogenomic projects for undergraduate researchers.