DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Causes and consequences of flower color variation in Aquilegia coerulea

个体之间的遗传变异在生命之树中无处不在，并且是适应性和非适应性进化变化的要求。影响物种内遗传变异的过程会影响它们的进化潜力。自然选择的强度和方向的地理差异导致种群的局部适应，并在物种水平上维持遗传变异，即使变异本来已经消失。虽然这一过程可能对自然选择的适应产生巨大的影响，但它在塑造物种进化命运方面的相对重要性尚不清楚。落基山脉Columbine生长在落基山脉南部的高海拔地区，该地区的特点是强烈的环境梯度，如夏季降水（即南部季风雨，北部几乎没有）。这项拟议中的研究将通过对该物种数百个个体进行全基因组测序来确定可变的遗传区域。分布和遗传变异的模式将用于确定那些正在经历地理上可变的自然选择的地区。温室实验将测试降水量是否会对一个显示地理变异的性状（花色）的变异体的适应性产生差异影响。这项拟议中的研究将提供重要的见解，了解不同物种范围内的环境差异如何影响全基因组水平的遗传变异。这种关系对于了解生物多样性如何在多变和不断变化的环境中产生和维持至关重要。鉴于全球气候迅速变化，这种认识具有特别重要的意义。这项工作将对学生进行培训。

Genetic variation between individuals is ubiquitous across the tree of life, and a requirement for both adaptive and non-adaptive evolutionary change. Processes that affect the genetic variation within species can affect their evolutionary potential. Geographic differences in the strength and direction of natural selection lead to local adaptation of populations and the maintenance of genetic variation at a species level, even when variation would have otherwise have been lost. Although this process has potentially dramatic consequences for adaptation by natural selection, its relative importance in shaping the evolutionary fate of species is unknown. Rocky Mountain columbine grows at high elevations in the Southern Rockies, a region characterized by strong environmental gradients such as summer precipitation (i.e. monsoonal rain in the south and almost none in the north). The proposed research will identify variable genetic regions through whole-genome sequencing of hundreds of individuals across the species? distribution, and patterns of genetic variation will be used to identify those regions that are experiencing geographically variable natural selection. Greenhouse experiments will test whether precipitation could differentially affect fitness of variants for one trait that shows geographic variation, flower color. The proposed research will provide important insight into how environmental differences across a species range affect genetic variation at the whole-genome level. This relationship is critical to understanding how biological diversity originates and is maintained through time in the face of a variable and changing environment. In light of rapid global climate change, such an understanding takes on particular significance. Training of students will result from this work.