SG: Phylogeny, Biogeography, and Revision of Lobelia in the Mexican Transition Zone

SG：墨西哥过渡区半边莲的系统发育、生物地理学和修正

• 批准号: 2242589
• 负责人: Tina Ayers
• 金额: $ 19.41万
• 依托单位: Northern Arizona University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2242589&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SG; Phylogeny; Biogeography; Revision; Lobelia

The five major mountain ranges in Mexico called the Mexican Transition Zone provide a unique opportunity to study the relationships of closely related species that are restricted to a single range. These mountains are a transition zone because they have a mix of organisms from the temperate parts of the Americas as well as from the tropics. The target organism for the project will be the plant genus Lobelia. There are 90 species in the mountains of Mexico and, of those, 83 are found only there. Most of the species have small, blue flowers and are insect-pollinated, but six have large, red flowers that are hummingbird-pollinated. Both groups have species with a unique floral feature, a nectar spur, found nowhere else in the world. This project will reconstruct the evolutionary relationships of the Mexican Lobelias to investigate how they are related to each other and to species in other parts of North and South America and will help determine whether hummingbird pollination and nectar spurs have evolved independently multiple times. First generation and underserved graduate and undergraduate students will be trained in molecular techniques and museum studies. The research will strengthen international collaborations among a Mexican specialist with intimate knowledge of the species from field work, students, and researchers. Outreach materials will be developed collaboratively and incorporated into a permanent public display and showcased at a booth at Louisiana State University’s monthly Night at the Museum event. Specimens collected and discoveries made will also be incorporated into courses taught at Northern Arizona University.Molecular data gathered from chloroplast genomes and a nuclear probe set developed for a closely related group will be used to build a comprehensive phylogenetic framework for the plant genus Lobelia, focusing on the highly diverse and endemic lineages of Mexico. This framework will be used to answer broad evolutionary questions about biogeography, pollinator shifts, and hybridization. A time-calibrated tree will also be produced to test specific biogeographic hypotheses in the Mexican Transition Zone including: 1- geographic barriers between lineages, 2- long-distance dispersal between mountain ranges, and 3- biogeographic patterns associated with pollination syndrome or presence of nectar spurs. The revisionary work produced by this collaboration and multiple undergraduates will include publicly available descriptions, images, photos, and an interactive web key to all Lobelia species in Mexico and Central America, all of which will serve as a resource for current and future floristic inventories.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.

墨西哥的五座主要山脉被称为墨西哥过渡区，为研究仅限于单一山脉的密切相关物种的关系提供了独特的机会。这些山脉是过渡区，因为它们混合了来自温带地区的生物。该项目的目标生物是半边莲属植物。墨西哥山区有 90 种植物，其中 83 种仅在那里发现，大多数物种都是小型的蓝色植物。花和是昆虫授粉，但有六种具有由蜂鸟授粉的大红色花朵，这两个群体都有具有独特花香特征的物种，这种特征在世界其他地方都找不到。研究它们之间以及与北美和南美其他地区的物种之间的关系，并将有助于确定蜂鸟授粉和花蜜刺是否已独立进化多次。第一代和服务不足的研究生和本科生将接受分子技术和技术方面的培训。该研究将加强一位对该物种有深入了解的墨西哥专家、学生和研究人员之间的国际合作，这些材料将共同开发并纳入永久性的公共展示，并在路易斯安那州立大学的展位上展示。每月一次的博物馆之夜活动。收集的标本和发现也将纳入北亚利桑那大学教授的课程。从叶绿体基因组收集的分子数据和为密切相关的群体开发的核探针组将用于构建全面的系统发育框架。对于半边莲属植物，该框架将用于回答有关生物地理学、传粉者转变和杂交的广泛进化问题，还将生成时间校准树来测试特定的生物地理学假设。在墨西哥过渡区，包括：1- 谱系之间的地理障碍，2- 山脉之间的长距离传播，以及 3- 与授粉综合症或花蜜刺的存在相关的生物地理模式。此次合作和多名本科生的修订工作将包括墨西哥和中美洲所有半边莲物种的公开描述、图像、照片和交互式网络密钥，所有这些都将作为当前和未来植物区系清单的资源。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。