DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Climate as a driver of leaf trait diversification in Mexican Dioscorea

已向斯托尼布鲁克的纽约州立大学提供了一笔赠款，由R.研究气候与草本植物进化的关系。 该补助金将改善Ramona Walls的博士论文研究。 该研究通过整合植物遗传学、物种分布建模和植物解剖学和生理学的技术来解决性状和物种多样化的问题。它的目的是测试的假设，即自然选择的区域气候因素是负责多样化的叶型在墨西哥的红葡萄，一个广泛的组草本藤本植物。 将对其他物种进行采样，以提供更准确的属内进化关系假设。这一信息与物种的地方性数据和生理测量相结合，从一个共同的花园研究的气候耐受性和进化历史的背景下，检查形式功能的关系。 两个叶函数的指标。水分利用效率和叶片水力传导率将在大量植物的自然环境中进行测量。 这将使它有可能测试额外的假设，即保守主义或演变的降水生态位在墨西哥瓜达拉哈拉是伴随着保守主义或进化的叶功能，和保守主义或进化的叶功能是联系在一起的特定集合的叶traits.The更广泛的影响，这项研究包括社会和教育效益。 墨西哥胡瓜包括一种主要的热带粮食作物（山药）的野生亲戚，以及许多被收获用于药物化合物的物种。因此，了解这一群体的进化关系，以及气候对其变化和分布的影响，在经济和社会上都具有重要意义。这项研究正在产生一个关于植物产地、表型特征、环境耐受性、植物图像和DNA序列的大型数据库，将通过在线数据库的出版物提供给科学界。 国际合作是这项研究的一个组成部分，几次墨西哥之行导致了与墨西哥科学家和学生的广泛互动。 最后，超过15名本科生参与了这项研究，大多数来自代表性不足的群体。

A grant has been awarded to the State university of New York at Stony Brook under the direction of Dr. R. Geeta to study the relationship of climate to the evolution of herbaceous plants. The grant will improve the doctoral dissertation research of Ramona Walls. This research addresses questions about trait and species diversification by integrating techniques from phylogenetics, species distribution modeling and plant anatomy and physiology. It is designed to test the hypothesis that natural selection by regional climate factors is responsible for the diversification of leaf forms in Mexican Dioscorea, a widespread group of herbaceous vines. Additional species will be sampled to provide a more accurate hypothesis of evolutionary relationships within the genus. This information with be combined with species locality data and physiological measurements from a common garden study to examine form-function relationships in the context of climate tolerances and evolutionary history. Indicators of two leaf functions. water use efficiency and leaf hydraulic conductance, will be measured in a large number of plants in their natural environment. This will make it possible to test the additional hypotheses that the conservatism or evolution of precipitation niches in Mexican Dioscorea is accompanied by the conservatism or evolution of leaf functions, and that the conservatism or evolution of leaf functions is linked to specific sets of leaf traits.The broader impacts of this research include both social and educational benefits. Mexican Dioscorea contain the wild relatives of a major tropical food crop (yams) as well as many species that are harvested for pharmaceutical compounds. Understanding the evolutionary relationships in this group, and the impacts of climate on its variation and distribution, is therefore economically and socially important. This research is generating a large data-base of plant localities, phenotypic characteristics, environmental tolerances, botanical images and DNA sequences that will be available to the scientific community through publication in online databases. International collaboration is an integral part of this research, and several trips to Mexico have lead to extensive interactions with Mexican scientists and students. Finally, more than fifteen undergraduate students have participated in this research, most from underrepresented groups.