Dimensions US-China: Collaborative Research: An integrated understanding of how polyploidy generates biodiversity

所有开花植物都是古代和/或近代多倍体（由于全基因组复制，每条染色体都有两个或多个副本）。这一现象被认为是生物适应和范围扩展的主要驱动力，然而多倍体究竟如何促进生物多样性，以及多倍体成功的基因组机制或功能特征，仍未得到解答。这项工作将使用野生草莓属（Fragaria）来解决长期存在的问题并测试基本假设。通过使用深层系统发育和群体基因组取样，结合在气候变化的田间花园中特征和基因表达的表征，该工作将确定多倍体/二倍体谱系中功能/遗传多样性的位置，并为预测全基因组复制对许多其他植物谱系中环境变化的生态和进化反应的影响提供信息。这个项目将加速我们对多倍体如何带来成功的理解，以及多倍体如何通过紧密联系多倍体的生态和基因组后果，在地理和进化尺度上促进生物多样性。此外，对栽培草莓的野生近缘种进行深入的综合比较研究，将为这一具有世界经济重要性的物种提供基础知识。此外，该研究将提供无与伦比的资源，可用于确保草莓和樱桃、桃子、梨和苹果等相关作物在面对非生物胁迫时的可持续性。这项工作将促进广泛参与和国际合作的培训，并为中学生和本科生提供新颖的动手科学课程。

All flowering plants are ancient and/or recent polyploids (possessing two or more copies of every chromosome as a result of whole genome duplication). This phenomenon is thought to be a main driver of biological adaptation and range expansion, yet exactly how polyploidy contributes to biodiversity, and which genomic mechanisms or functional traits underlie the success of polyploids, remain unanswered questions. The work will use the wild strawberry genus (Fragaria) to address long standing questions and test fundamental hypotheses. Through the use of deep phylogenetic and population genomic sampling combined with characterization of trait and gene expression under climatically diverse field gardens, the work will identify where functional/genetic diversity resides in a polyploid/diploid lineage, and inform efforts to predict the effect of whole genome duplication on ecological and evolutionary responses to environmental change in numerous other plant lineages. This project will accelerate our understanding of how polyploidy confers success, and how it contributes to biodiversity across geographic and evolutionary scales by tightly interlinking the ecological and genomic consequences of polyploidization. Moreover, this deeply integrated comparative study of the wild relatives of the cultivated strawberry will provide foundational knowledge on a species of world-wide economic importance. In addition, the research will contribute unparalleled resources that may be harnessed in efforts to ensure sustainability of strawberry and related crops such as cherry, peach, pear and apple, in the face of abiotic stress. The work will promote training by broad participation and international collaboration, and novel hands-on science curricula for middle school and undergraduate students.