Collaborative: Phylogenetic and Geographic Patterns in Moss Diversity

苔藓(苔藓亚门或苔藓门)是仅次于成功的被子植物(开花植物)的第二大陆地植物群，是几乎所有陆地生态系统的重要组成部分。在过去五年中，在了解苔藓之间的系统发育关系方面取得了巨大进展，该项目将在此基础上取得重大进展。从多个叶绿体和核基因获得的DNA序列中包含的信息将被用于重建苔藓多样性的全谱系关系，这些谱系从几乎所有目前公认的865个苔藓属中采集。反过来，家谱发现将被用来调查在全球范围内影响苔藓多样性模式的历史和生态因素。这项研究的一个新方面将是整合不同的生物多样性测量方法。特别是，研究人员将比较所谓的分类多样性，即传统分类学研究承认的物种数量，与基于DNA水平上的变异(突变多样性)的所谓多样性系统发育度量(PD：系统发育多样性)。这种对系统发育多样性的测量最近在保护生物学中获得了突出的地位，这项研究将把这种应用扩展到对一大类陆地生物的全球生物多样性格局的研究。合作研究人员杜克大学的乔恩·肖博士和康涅狄格大学的伯纳德·戈菲内博士将寻求测试关于热带和高纬度生态系统中生物多样性的相对水平，以及不同类型栖息地的群落之间的具体假设。因此，这项工作将有助于更广泛地了解控制世界生物多样性的根本机制。这笔资金还将对杜克大学和康涅狄格大学的年轻生物学家的培训做出重大贡献。

The mosses (Division or Phylum Bryophyta) comprise the second largest group of land plants, after the highly successful angiosperms (flowering plants), and are important components of virtually all terrestrial ecosystems. Tremendous progress has been made in the last five years toward an understanding of phylogenetic relationships among the mosses and this project will build significantly upon that foundation. Information containedin DNA sequences acquired from multiple chloroplast and nuclear genes will be used to reconstruct genealogical relationships across the full spectrum of moss diversity, sampled from nearly all 865 currently recognized genera of mosses. In turn, the genealogical findings will then be used to investigate historical and ecological factors that affect patterns of moss diversity on a global scale. A novel aspect of the research will be the integration of different approaches to the measurement of biodiversity. In particular, the investigators will compare so-called taxic diversity, the numbers of species recognized by traditional taxonomic studies, to so-called phylogenetic measures of diversity (PD: phylogenetic diversity) based on variation (mutational diversity) at the DNA level. Such measures of phylogenetic diversity have recently gained prominence in conservation biology, and the research will extend such applications to the study of global biodiversity patterns in a major group of terrestrial organisms. Collaborating investigators Dr. Jon Shaw at Duke University and Dr. Bernard Goffinet at University of Connecticut will seek to test specific hypotheses about relative levels of biodiversity in tropical versus high latitude ecosystems, and between communities in different types of habitats. The work will therefore contribute to a broader understanding of the underlying mechanisms that control the world's biodiversity. This funding will also contribute significantly to the training of young biologists at Duke University and the University of Connecticut.