Collaborative Research: Temperate radiations and tropical dominance: the diversification and evolution of the plant clade Ericales

环绕地球赤道带的热带森林比向两极延伸的温带地区拥有更多的植物物种。几个世纪以来，生物学家一直试图解释热带和温带地区生物多样性的差异，但由于数据有限，特别是在植物群体中，这一努力受到了阻碍。尽管如此，了解这些世界范围内的模式对于了解美国自然系统中的这些模式至关重要，植物在生态和经济上扮演着重要的角色。这项研究将提供一个详细的研究，一个多样化的和全球分布的植物群，被称为杜鹃花科，其中包括各种经济上重要的物种，如蓝莓，猕猴桃，柿子，巴西坚果，木材木材（例如，乌木）、杜鹃花、杜鹃花，甚至是食肉植物。这些新收集的“大数据”资源将使研究人员能够发现有助于地球森林生物多样性起源和维持的遗传和形态因素。这项研究还将促进培养下一代年轻的STEM研究人员，使他们能够熟练地应用计算和植物基因组学资源来应对国家面临的挑战。热带植物惊人的多样性有助于物种丰富度向低纬度方向增加的纬度多样性梯度;这是整个生命之树的模式。尽管热带生物群系的重要性和运动的进化/生态学的重要性，进入和离开热带纬度，稀疏的采样的物种的DNA序列和形态特征抑制了进展，解决重大的进化问题的起源，多样化，生态位进化的谱系与温带和热带的过渡。本研究定位于克服这些局限性，使用多样性和生态重要的植物分支杜鹃花科作为案例研究。研究人员将使用转录组和靶向捕获测序来解决系统发育关系，并以前所未有的规模表征杜鹃花科内的基因和基因组进化，以产生一个强大的物种水平的系统发育，结合古植物学数据，形态特征（包括习性和花），以及有关物种生态位的信息，以评估热带和温带多样化的内在和外在相关性。他们将进行分析，解决广泛关注的具体问题：1）温带和热带血统之间多样化和进化的主要驱动力是什么？2)对新环境的适应是否会导致分子进化和多样化的速度加快？3)不同生物群系和不同海拔的谱系之间进化速率的差异是否反映在单个物种的地理和生态位进化模式中？4)高度多样化和受到威胁的热带山地生物群落的地理历史和适应性是什么？该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为是值得通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

The tropical forests that circle the equatorial belt of Earth are home to vastly more plant species than the temperate zones that extend toward the poles. Biologists have tried to explain the difference in biodiversity between tropical and temperate regions for centuries, but efforts have been hindered by limited data, particularly among plant groups. Nevertheless, understanding these worldwide patterns is fundamentally important to understanding these patterns in natural systems in the U.S., where plants play a key ecological and economic role. This research will provide a detailed study of a diverse and globally distributed group of plants, known as the Ericales, that includes a variety of economically important species such as blueberries, kiwi fruit, persimmon, Brazil nut, timber woods (e.g., ebony), azaleas, rhododendrons, and even carnivorous plants. These newly collected "big data" resources will allow researchers to discover genetic and morphological factors that contribute to the origin and maintenance of the biological diversity in Earth's forests. This research will also promote the training of the next generation of young STEM researchers to be fluent in application of computational and plant genomics resources to challenges facing the nation.The staggering diversity of tropical plants contributes to a latitudinal diversity gradient of increased species richness towards lower latitudes; a pattern found across the tree of life. Despite the significance of tropical biomes and the evolutionary/ecological importance of movements across, into, and out of tropical latitudes, the sparse sampling of species for both DNA sequences and morphological traits has inhibited progress in addressing major evolutionary questions regarding the origin, diversification, and niche evolution of lineages with temperate and tropical transitions. This research is positioned to overcome these limitations, using the diverse and ecologically important plant clade Ericales as a case study. The researchers will use transcriptome and targeted-capture sequencing to resolve phylogenetic relationships and characterize gene and genome evolution within the Ericales at an unprecedented scale to produce a robust species-level phylogeny combined with paleobotanical data, morphological traits (including habit and floral), and information regarding species niche to evaluate the intrinsic and extrinsic correlates of tropical and temperate diversification. They will conduct analyses that address specific questions of broad interest: 1) What are the major drivers of diversification and evolution between the temperate and tropical lineages? 2) Do adaptations to new environments lead to faster rates of both molecular evolution and diversification? 3) Are differences in rates of evolution between lineages in different biomes and different elevations reflected in individual species geographic and niche evolution patterns? 4) What biogeographic histories and adaptations underlie the highly diverse and threatened tropical montane biomes?This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.