Dissertation Research: A Revision of Agenium and Homozeugos Integrating Cladistic Analysis and Geographic Information Systems

在佛罗里达大学教授Walter Judd的指导下，研究生Gerald Guala正在研究南美洲和非洲热带稀树草原地区两属禾本科植物的分类学、系统发育和生态学。他正在结合两种现代分析方法的技术：对特征进行枝状分析，以推断物种之间可能的进化关系；以及基于计算机的地理信息系统（GIS）分析，将单个种群的土壤和气候测量结果绘制到分类群的枝状图上。南美洲的Agenium和非洲的Homozeugos这两个属之间的比较，旨在揭示相似的气候模式是否与两类热带草原草的物种形成（枝发生或分裂）事件的顺序有关。这项研究是将GIS方法应用于分析南美洲和非洲两种草属的系统发育模式的开创性应用。＊＊＊

9423452 Judd Graduate student Gerald Guala, under the guidance of Prof. Walter Judd of the University of Florida, is studying the taxonomy, phylogeny, and ecology of two genera of grasses found in savanna regions of South America and Africa. He is combining technologies from two modern analytical approaches: cladistic analysis of characters to infer likely evolutionary relationships among the species; and computer- based geographic information system (GIS) analyses to map soil and climate measurements for individual populations onto the cladograms of taxa. Comparisons between the two genera, Agenium in South America and Homozeugos in Africa, are designed to reveal whether similar climatic patterns are correlated with the sequence of speciation (cladogenetic or splitting) events in the two groups of savanna grasses. The study is a pioneering application of GIS methodology to the analysis of phylogenetic patterns in two grass genera, occupying similar habitats in South America and Africa. ***