Excellence in Research: Developing a Model System for Studying the Determinants of Flower Morphology in Tropical Dioecious Trees

卓越的研究：开发用于研究热带雌雄异株树木花形态决定因素的模型系统

• 批准号: 2401525
• 负责人: Daniel Koenemann
• 金额: $ 39.14万
• 依托单位: Claflin University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2024
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2024-07-01 至 2027-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2401525&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Excellence; Research; Developing; Model; System

In many plant species, one can find presence of male and female flowers on separate plants or on same plants or single flowers carrying both the stamens (male) and pistil (female) parts. The interplay between genetics and the environment in determining the flower type and development of floral organs in such plants remains largely uninvestigated. To study this phenomenon, the project team will use Coccoloba diversifolia (pigeonplum), a native of neotropical coastal areas of Southern Florida, Caribbean, Southern Mexico and Central America. It is an important native tropical tree and shows a varying degree of flower patterns mentioned above. The team will sequence the genome of this plant species and profile the genetics and flowering patterns found in a wild population to identify the regions of genome that play a role in regulating the development of flowers and floral organs. The proposed experiments, data collection and analyses will provide an excellent opportunity and source material to train the graduate and undergraduate students representing the full spectrum of diverse talent in genomics, bioinformatics, biological data science and conservation. Among dioecious taxa, the factors and mechanisms determining which biological individuals are pistillate and which are staminate are still not well understood. In a small minority of cases, heteromorphic chromosomes have been identified as one major determinant. In other cases, environmental factors have been identified as major determinants. Yet even these cases appear not to identify strict determinants. Moreover, the biological systems in which these phenomena are studied, have been overwhelmingly herbaceous and temperate. The project looks to examine the interplay of genetics and the environment in the determination of pistillate and staminate individuals in a tropical tree with variable floral expression. The project will (1) assemble and annotate the complete nuclear genome of the study taxon Coccoloba diversifolia using a combination of short- and long-read DNA sequencing along with proximity ligation, (2) identify the genetic regions contributing to the determination of pistillate or staminate individuals through population sampling, shallow whole genome shotgun sequencing and the identification of morphology-specific reads, and (3) assess the contribution of environment in determining flower morphology through the documentation of flower morphology ratios in relation to environmental conditions for populations of C. diversifolia in South Florida. The project team will provide training and skills development opportunities to students from underserved communities on experiential learning, genomics, and bioinformatics.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.

在许多植物物种中，人们可以在单独的植物或同一植物或携带雄蕊（雄性）和雌蕊（雌性）部分的单一花朵上发现雄花和雌花的存在。 遗传学与环境之间的相互作用在确定这些植物中花样的花类型和发展的开发仍然很大程度上没有被评估。为了研究这一现象，项目团队将使用Coccoloba Diversifolia（Pigeonplum），这是佛罗里达州南部，加勒比海，墨西哥南部和中美洲的新热带沿海地区的本地人。它是一棵重要的本地热带树，显示上述花样的不同程度。该小组将对该植物物种的基因组进行测序，并介绍野生种群中发现的遗传和开花模式，以识别基因组的基因组区域，这些区域在调节花和花器的发展中发挥作用。 拟议的实验，数据收集和分析将为培训代表基因组学，生物信息学，生物学数据科学和保护的全部人才的研究生和本科生提供绝佳的机会和原始资料。在尤其是尤其的分类单元中，确定哪些生物学个体是雌雄同体和雄蕊的因素和机制，仍然不太了解。在少数情况下，杂形染色体已被确定为一种主要决定因素。在其他情况下，环境因素已被确定为主要决定因素。然而，即使这些案件似乎也无法确定严格的决定因素。此外，研究了这些现象的生物系统，绝大多数是草本和温和的。该项目旨在检查遗传学和环境的相互作用，以确定具有变化花卉表达的热带树中的雌蕊和灭绝个体。该项目将（1）使用短读和长长读取DNA测序以及接近性结合的组合组合研究和注释研究分类群体的完全核基因组多样性，（2）确定遗传区域，确定有助于确定赛犬或通过种群splacecience specience specience sepcience sprace sprace sprience seprcecience seprace seprace saplective saplective saplectifice seprace seprace saplence saplencience seprace seprce saplence saplectic soprclience saplectic soprclience（环境通过记录花形态比率与南佛罗里达州多元化梭菌种群有关的花朵形态比率来确定花形态的贡献。该项目团队将为服务不足的社区的学生提供培训和技能发展机会，以实现体验式学习，基因组学和生物信息学。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并被认为是值得通过基金会的知识分子优点和更广泛影响的评估来评估值得支持的。