Evolution of Tropical Heliconia: Temporal and Spatial Diversification at the Species Level

在Chelsea Specht博士的指导下，加州大学伯克利分校获得了一个奖项，以研究花卉形式的多样化和一个被称为heliconias的热带植物家族的分类。 拟议的研究的目标是发展的理解的进化历史的Heliconiaceae，生态和经济的重要家庭的热带植物。蝎尾蕉科（Heliconias）包括约215种（目前已确认的190种，估计仍有25种待描述），主要分布在新热带地区。虽然海蝎尾蕉在世界各地都作为热带植物种植，但其原产地范围从墨西哥中部延伸到南美洲中部，包括加勒比海，其中六个密切相关的物种原产于印度尼西亚，新几内亚和几个南太平洋岛屿。虽然蝎尾蕉经常被栽培为昆虫，但关于蝎尾蕉属物种之间的关系还没有得到很好支持的假设，主要是由于蜂鸟授粉所特有的花性状的相似性。物种已被划分为亚属的形态学的基础上，但这种分类尚未测试。 蝎尾蕉属物种与传粉蜂鸟和草食性卷叶胡蜂甲虫以及其他互惠、寄生和掠夺性伙伴关系都保持着复杂而专门的进化关系。一个全面的，有充分支持的系统发育是必要的，以确定家庭内的物种水平的关系，并了解这种复杂的种间相互作用的花和营养特征的演变。该系统发生学将用于（a）利用进化关系来协调和修订该科的分类学，以确定亚属群的专门特征，以及（B）解释授粉关系、草食动物相互作用和热带植物地理学的进化趋势。培训将在研究生和本科生两个层次进行，将学生纳入研究的各个方面，包括实地收集，系统发育和地理分析，以及新物种和更高级别分类群的描述。

An award has been made to the University of California at Berkeley under the direction of Dr. Chelsea Specht to study the diversification of floral form and the classification of a family of tropical plants known as heliconias. The goal of the proposed research is to develop an understanding of the evolutionary history of Heliconiaceae, an ecologically and economically important family of tropical plants. The family Heliconiaceae (heliconias) comprises approximately 215 species (190 currently recognized with an estimated 25 remaining to be described) in the single genus Heliconia, distributed primarily in the neotropics. While heliconias are grown as tropical ornamentals throughout the world, the native range extends from central Mexico to central South America including the Caribbean, with a group of six closely related species native to Indonesia, New Guinea, and several South Pacific islands. Although heliconias are frequently cultivated as ornamentals, there have been no well-supported hypotheses on relationships among species of Heliconia, primarily due to similarities in flower traits that are specific to hummingbird pollination. Species have been divided taxonomically into subgenera based on morphology, but this classification has not been tested. Heliconia species each maintain intricate and specialized evolutionary relationships with pollinating hummingbirds and herbivorous rolled-leaf hispine beetles, as well as other mutualistic, parasitic, and predatory partnerships. A comprehensive, well-supported phylogeny is necessary to determine species-level relationships within the family and to understand the evolution of floral and vegetative characters involved in such complex interspecies interactions. This phylogeny will be used to (a) reconcile and revise the taxonomy of the family using evolutionary relationships to determine specialized features of subgeneric groupings and (b) interpret evolutionary trends in pollination relationships, herbivore interactions, and tropical biogeography. Training will take place at both graduate and undergraduate levels, incorporating students into all aspects of the research, including field collections, phylogenetic and biogeographic analyses, and the description of new species and higher-level taxonomic groupings.