Collaborative Research: RUI: A Phylogenomic Study of a Hyper-Diverse Flowering Plant Lineage, Subfamily Lamioideae (Lamiaceae)

理解导致物种形成的进化过程仍然是生物学中的一个根本挑战。薄荷科(Lamiaceae)是世界上第六大开花植物科，在生态、民族植物学和植物区系等方面都具有极其重要的地位。在薄荷家族中，第二大亚科薄荷(薄荷亚科)是探索植物多样性和进化辐射的全球模式或一个分支中物种数量迅速增加的极好模式。这项研究将使用高通量DNA测序技术来建立对薄荷层的进化关系的稳健理解。该项目的发现将对系统学家、进化生物学家和生态学家具有广泛的价值，有助于弥合我们对植物如何多样化的基本理解上的差距，包括早期开花植物的进化和新形成的栖息地的殖民，如火山岛。从这个项目中收集的信息还将提高我们对薄荷的比较生物学的知识，指导新产品的发现，并帮助制定濒危物种的保护措施。该项目包括多个层次的教育和职业培训的广泛机会，包括高中教师、本科生、博士后研究员和职业生涯早期的女教员。该项目团队将举办有关薄荷薄荷糖的公开研讨会，突出其研究成果和更广泛的影响。这个项目的一个重要组成部分是培养和指导本科生，来自密苏里州西部州立大学的12名本科生将积极参与到这个项目的各个方面。薄荷被归类为13个部落，几乎分布在世界各地，大多数分类群发现在旧大陆，只有两个谱系殖民了新大陆和夏威夷群岛。尽管这种广泛的分布和多样性，但仍然缺乏一个坚实的薄荷类系统发育框架，从中可以探索多样性的模式以及与分布、生态和基因组动态变化的联系。该项目将利用下一代测序方法，包括定向浓缩、转录组分和从美国各地的田间和草本植物中进行广泛的分类采样，以建立一个强大的薄荷类系统发育平台。将完成以下主要目标：1)划定拉莫亚科的主要支系及其相互关系，并进行必要的分类学改变，包括确定由新大陆成员Stachydeae和Synandreae组成的两个部落以及Gomphystmateae和Pogostemoneae基本部落的位置；2)估计关键进化事件的时间和多样化的速度；3)将Lamioideae，特别是Stachydeae和Synandreae的多样性与生物地理、全基因组和基因复制以及特征性状进化联系起来，以确定可能的关键创新和形态特征的明显重复进化。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Understanding the evolutionary processes that lead to speciation remains a fundamental challenge in biology. As the sixth largest flowering plant family, the mint family (Lamiaceae) is exceptionally important ecologically, ethnobotanically, and floristically. Within the mint family, the second largest subfamily, the lamioid mints (Lamioideae), serves as an excellent model for exploring global patterns of plant diversification and evolutionary radiation, or a rapid increase in the number of species in a clade. This research will use high throughput DNA sequencing technologies to build a robust understanding of evolutionary relationships in the lamioid mints. The findings from this project will be of broad value to systematists, evolutionary biologists, and ecologists by helping close gaps in our fundamental understanding of how plants diversify, including the evolution of early flowering plants and colonization of newly formed habitats, such as volcanic islands. Information gathered from this project will also improve our knowledge of the comparative biology of lamioid mints, guide new product discovery, and aid in the development of conservation measures for endangered species. This project incorporates extensive opportunities for education and career training at multiple levels, including high school teachers, undergraduate students, a postdoctoral researcher, and an early-career female faculty. The project team will offer public seminars about lamioid mints, highlighting their research findings and broader implications. An important component of this project is to train and mentor undergraduate students, and twelve undergraduate students from Missouri Western State University will become actively involved in various aspects of this project.The lamioid mints, which have been categorized into 13 tribes, have a near cosmopolitan distribution, with most taxa found in the Old World and only two lineages having colonized the New World and Hawaiian Islands. Despite this widespread distribution and diversity, a solid phylogenomic framework of the lamioid mints, from which patterns of diversification and links to shifts in distribution, ecology, and genome dynamics can be explored, is still lacking. This project will utilize next-generation sequencing approaches involving targeted enrichment, transcriptomics, and broad taxonomic sampling from field and herbaria across the US to build a robust phylogenetic platform of the lamioid mints. The following major goals will be accomplished: 1) Circumscribe the major clades of Lamioideae and their interrelationships and make necessary taxonomic changes, including determining the placement of the two tribes comprising New World members, Stachydeae and Synandreae, and the basal tribes, Gomphostemmateae and Pogostemoneae; 2) Estimate the timing of key evolutionary events and rates of diversification; 3) Link diversifications in Lamioideae, particularly within Stachydeae and Synandreae, with shifts in biogeography, whole genome and gene duplication, and character trait evolution to identify possible key innovations and apparent repeated evolution of morphological characters.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.