Collaborative Research: Gene Flow Across a Landscape mosaic: Biogeography and Domestication in Stenocereus Stellatus (Cactaceae)

在全球范围内，生态系统反映了人类居民的技术创新、经济约束和文化愿望。植物驯化——培养一个狭窄的基因库并从野生种群中提取——可能对人类影响的景观中的植物物种产生负面影响。另外，人类管理可以增强多样性，例如，通过交换作物地方品种或杂交。本项目将研究植物驯化过程及其对栽培种群和野生种群多样性和基因流动的影响。仙人掌（Stenocereus stellatus）为研究这些过程提供了一个理想的机会，因为它在墨西哥中部的传统农业系统中被积极驯化。本研究将利用遗传和形态特征来估计星螺的多样性模式，测量基因运动，描述星螺的历史生物地理模式以及人类文化在创造这些模式中可能发挥的作用。这项研究将进一步加深我们对农业生物多样性、植物驯化和人-植物相互作用地理学的理解。研究结果可应用于发展中国家社会经济背景下的生物多样性管理。该项目是一项国际合作的一部分，将支持美国和墨西哥本科生和研究生的科学培训和交流。

Globally, ecosystems reflect the technological innovations, economic constraints, and cultural aspirations of their human inhabitants. Plant domestication - cultivation of a narrow genetic pool and extraction from wild populations - can have negative effects for plant species in a human impacted landscape. Alternatively, human management can enhance diversity, for instance, through exchange of crop landraces or hybridization. This project will investigate the process of plant domestication and its impact on diversity and gene flow in cultivated and wild populations. The cactus, Stenocereus stellatus, provides an ideal opportunity to study these processes because it is actively under domestication within traditional agriculture systems in Central Mexico. This study will use genetic and morphologic characters to estimate patterns of diversity within S. stellatus, measure gene movement, and describe historic biogeographic patterns of S. stellatus and the role that human cultures may have had in creating those patterns. This research will further our understanding of agrobiodiversity, plant domestication, and the geography of human-plant interactions. Results can be applied towards management of biodiversity within the socioeconomic context of developing countries. This project is part of an international collaboration and will support scientific training and exchange for undergraduate and graduate students in the United States and Mexico.