The seemingly endless diversity of flower shapes and colors captivates humans but evolved to entice pollinators in one of the most intricate and crucial biological interactions. This project tests the impact of floral diversity on speciation in the plant family Goodeniaceae, which is closely related to the large sunflower family. Goodeniaceae (400+ species) is one of the most species-rich and beautiful plant families in Australia and the Pacific Islands, and is particularly important to the Southwestern Australian Floristic Province, a threatened global biodiversity hotspot. The current taxonomic classification of these plants does not accurately reflect their evolutionary history, so a comprehensive revision of the group will be made using DNA sequences. Digital image analysis, floral symmetry gene expression, and the patterns of symmetry throughout development will be examined to quantify the species' floral shape. Hypotheses of the impact of these shapes on rates of diversification will be assessed using this new information.
Undergraduate researchers will help study the interaction of insect pollinators with a subset of species in Western Australia. Students from the diverse communities of Memphis, Tennessee and Queens, New York will be an integral part of the project and will gain expertise in many aspects of molecular and evolutionary biology. This project will also help establish the conservation status of new and potentially rare species.
