Abstract DBI 9750007 Seung-Chul Kim This action funds an NSF/Alfred P. Sloan Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Molecular Evolution for 1997. These fellowships support studies involving the theoretical, comparative, computational, and/or experimental analyses of biological patterns and processes at the molecular level within the framework of organismic evolutionary change and adaptation. These studies also include the use of molecular data to address broader evolutionary questions. Each fellowship supports a research and training plan to be carried out in a sponsoring laboratory. The research and training plan for this fellowship is entitled "The Transfer of Genetic Adaptations between Wild Sunflower Species." Interspecific transfer of genetic adaptations through hybridization and backcrossing (introgression) is thought to be common in plants but has been difficult to prove. The research and training plan supported here will employ genetic mapping tools to verify experimentally the introgressive origin of several adaptive morphological features in Helianthus annus ssp. texanus. This is a new subspecies putatively derived via the introgression of H. debilis genes into H. annus.
