A Comparative Invesitgation of Hybrid Speciation in Wild Sunflowers

Rieseberg 9806290生物学上最令人兴奋的最新进展之一是能够为几乎任何植物或动物物种生成详细的遗传图谱。这些图谱不仅对分离感兴趣的基因至关重要，而且还可以用来研究种群生物学中的重要问题，如新物种是如何形成的。这笔赠款的目的是为另外两个向日葵物种杂交产生的三个野生向日葵物种开发遗传连锁图谱。通过比较杂交物种及其亲本的遗传图谱，将有可能准确地确定杂交物种形成所需的基因变化，并估计这一过程可能发生的速度。这项工作的主要成果将是一个更具预测性的杂交物种形成理论。然而，这项研究产生的遗传图谱很可能对从生态到农业的各种领域的研究人员有用。这是因为要调查的野生向日葵的特点是具有生态学家和植物育种者都感兴趣的耐旱性和耐盐性等适应能力。根据这一建议生成的图谱可用于阐明这些适应的基因组位置和遗传基础，并有助于将它们转移到栽培向日葵上。此外，为分析向日葵图谱数据而开发的新的分析方法应该广泛适用于任何涉及遗传连锁分析的数据集。

Rieseberg 9806290 One of the most exciting recent advances in biology has been the ability to generate detailed genetic maps for almost any plant or animal species. These maps not only are essential for isolating genes of interest, but they also can be used to study important questions in population biology such as how new species are formed. The purpose of this grant is to develop genetic linkage maps for three wild sunflower species that are products of hybridization between two other sunflower species. By comparing the genetic maps of the hybrid species and their parents, it will be possible to determine exactly what genetic changes are necessary for hybrid speciation to occur and to estimate how rapidly this process might take place. The primary outcome of this work will be a more predictive theory of hybrid speciation. However, the genetic maps generated by this research are likely to be useful to researchers in a variety of fields ranging from ecology to agriculture. This is because the wild sunflowers to be investigated are characterized by adaptations such as drought and saline tolerance that are of interest to both ecologists and plant breeders. The maps generated by this proposal can be used to elucidate the genomic location and genetic basis of these adaptations and to facilitate their transfer to the cultivated sunflower. In addition, novel analytical methods developed to analyze the sunflower mapping data should be broadly applicable to any data set that involves genetic linkage analyses.