9628787 Meerow With combined expertise in morphological and molecular studies of plants, Drs. Alan Meerow and Charles Guy of the University of Florida are investigating the phylogenetic relationships among tropical New World members of the large and taxonomically difficult family Amaryllidaceae. Building upon Meerow's field experience in the neotropics, the investigators have developed a network of collaborators in South America who can provide materials of localized species, material that will include samples for DNA sequencing to yield new molecular information for taxonomic comparisons. The new data from sequencing of nuclear ribosomal DNA will be integrated with other molecular results from colleagues in England, and in turn, these data will be integrated with morphological and anatomical characters, in collaboration with South African colleagues. The family Amaryllidaceae, with numerous horticulturally important forms like Crinum, Narcissus, and Zephyranthes, is notoriously difficult taxonomically, in part because the floral features used for classification are suspected to have evolved in parallel (hence, converged in similarity) in numerous separate lineages in Africa, Asia, and the Americas, for pollination by moths or birds. Molecular estimates of nucleotide substitutional differences from 75 or so exemplars of all the New World genera will provide data to construct a broad genealogical framework for the family, and morphological characters can then be used to assess fine-scale species-level relationships. Phylogenetic and taxonomic analyses of the Amaryllidaceae will improve documentation of biodiversity patterns in the tropics, facilitate study of biogeographic migrations and regions of endemism, guide selection of stocks for horticultural improvement, and identify clusters of related species and genera that may share biosynthetic capabilities, in a family well-known for producing novel alkaloids, some poisonous to humans.
