Collaborative Research: ARTS: Taxonomy and phylogeny of Capsicum and Lycianthes (Solanaceae)

该奖项支持探索茄科(茄科)辣椒及其近亲的遗传和物种多样性。辣椒用于辣椒粉、辣酱和辣酱中，是一种全球价值约300亿美元的主要作物，也是世界上最重要的蔬菜香料之一。辣椒起源于新大陆(墨西哥、中美洲和南美洲)，是拉丁美洲菜肴中一种著名的配料。然而，在大多数亚洲国家以及一些非洲和太平洋岛国，它们现在是传统菜肴的重要组成部分。尽管如此，野生辣椒及其近缘种的物种和遗传多样性还没有得到很好的研究。令人惊讶的是，许多野生近亲生长在潮湿的雨林中，没有辛辣的水果。了解辣椒及其亲缘关系的多样性，将为辣椒的驯化和控制有用性状的基因的研究提供重要的信息。该奖项将资助实地考察野生辣椒种群及其亲缘关系，调查它们的遗传多样性，并建立一棵显示它们之间关系的进化树。这一组中所有物种的图文并茂的描述将在网上提供，以及帮助识别它们的工具。将在犹他州、加利福尼亚州、阿根廷和英格兰开展这一项目的研究团队都是这组植物的专家。在实现这项研究的科学目标的同时，他们将通过现场博客、媒体发布和加州大学戴维斯分校儿童花园的K-12外联活动，向广大受众传达植物学研究的兴奋和发现。该项目将通过提供关于辣椒属(辣椒属)及其姊妹属(番茄属)的完整、详细的分类学和系统发育信息来促进知识的发展。这两个属都缺乏现代的物种水平的处理方法和强大的、样本充足的系统发育。这些数据是未来对这两个属的系统和作物改良工作的基础，并将刺激对其他生物学问题的研究，如辣椒辛辣的进化和关键创新，如茄科植物的花药毛孔。这个项目将收集关于辣椒和枸杞的系统信息，划定物种，发现新的分类群，并澄清物种范围。这在许多野生辣椒分类群中尤其重要，这些分类群是极度濒危生态系统中的狭义地方性物种。该项目的分类部分将在网上提供，并使用以前由国家科学基金会资助的关于茄属(茄科来源)的倡议创建的数据结构和网站资源。所有数据都将免费供重复使用。分类和命名信息还将与生命百科全书等聚合机构共享。分子数据将使用下一代测序技术，将分类学家的专业知识与辣椒育种和基因组学专家的专业知识相结合。这些数据将被用来制作迄今为止样本最密集的辣椒和枸杞的系统发育图。该项目产生的基因组信息和数据可能在植物系统发育和其他茄科作物的改良中具有广泛的适用性。这一研究将解决这两个属之间复杂而不确定的关系，并为世界上最重要的蔬菜香料之一S的进化和驯化研究提供框架。最终，这项工作可能会制造出更好的胡椒。

This award supports exploration of genetic and species diversity in chili peppers and their close relatives in the nightshade family (Solanaceae). Chili peppers, used in chili powder, salsa, and hot sauce, are a major crop worth approximately $30 billion worldwide, and one of the most important vegetable spices in the world. Chili peppers evolved in the New World (Mexico, Central and South America), and are a well-known ingredient in Latin American cuisine. However, they are now an important component of traditional dishes in most Asian and some African and Pacific Island countries. Despite this significance, the species and genetic diversity in wild chili peppers and their relatives has not been well studied. Surprisingly, many of the wild relatives grow in wet rainforests and do not have spicy fruits. Understanding this diversity and the relationships among peppers and their relatives will provide important information on domestication and the genes controlling useful traits for chili pepper breeding and research. This award will fund field work to visit populations of wild chili peppers and their relatives, investigate their genetic diversity, and build an evolutionary tree showing their relationships. Illustrated descriptions for all the species in this group will be provided online, along with tools to help in their identification. The team of investigators who will carry out this project, located in Utah, California, Argentina, and England, are all experts on this group of plants. Along with realizing the scientific goals of this study, they will convey the excitement and discovery of botanical research to a wide audience through blogs from the field, media releases, and K-12 outreach at a children's garden at UC Davis. This project will advance knowledge by providing complete, detailed taxonomic and phylogenetic information on the pepper genus (Capsicum) and its sister genus (Lycianthes). Both genera lack modern, species-level treatments and robust, well-sampled phylogenies. These data are fundamental to future systematic and crop improvement work on both genera and will stimulate the examination of other biological questions such as the evolution of chili pepper pungency and key innovations such as anther pores in the Solanaceae. This project will assemble systematic information on Capsicum and Lycianthes, delimiting species, discovering new taxa, and clarifying species ranges. This is especially important in many of the wild Capsicum taxa that are narrow endemics in critically endangered ecosystems. The taxonomic component of this project will be available on-line and use the data structures and website resources created in a previously NSF-funded initiative on the genus Solanum (Solanaceae Source). All data will be freely available for re-use. The taxonomic and nomenclatural information will also be shared with aggregator institutions such as Encyclopedia of Life. Molecular data will be acquired using next-generation sequencing techniques by combining the expertise of taxonomists with that of a specialist in pepper breeding and genomics. These data will be used to produce the most densely sampled phylogenies of Capsicum and Lycianthes to date. The genomic information and data generated during this project may have broad applicability in plant phylogenetics and the improvement of other solanaceous crops. This research will solve the complex and uncertain relationship between the two genera and provide the framework for the study of evolution and domestication in one of the world?s most important vegetable spices. Eventually this work may build a better pepper.