IOS-0845641 "Floral development in the Zingiberales: an integrative approach to understanding the evolution of plant form and function"
This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5)
This project initiates a long-term investigation of the genetic mechanisms underlying interactions of floral form and function, specifically targeting novel morphologies involved in the key innovation of pollination "syndromes," or morphological innovations that make plants attractive to particular pollinators. The evolution of novel floral forms that enable changes in pollinator attraction and affect shifts in rates of diversification will be studied in the order Zingiberales (tropical gingers, bananas), important agricultural, ecological and ornamental plants. The main objective is to investigate the structural and functional evolution of Zingiberales MADS box-containing genes as moderators of plant organ identity in this order. By focusing first on organ identity, we will elucidate the mechanisms underlying floral development and diversification in this diverse lineage, while simultaneously increasing our understanding of MADS box gene and floral organ evolution across all flowering plants. This project uses a comparative approach to determine the role of candidate genes in major changes in floral morphology, and to investigate how different interactions with pollinators may influence speciation rates within a diverse group of plants. A combination of developmental genetics, phylogenetics, bioinformatics and comparative plant morphology will be used to study patterns and processes of floral evolution and morphological diversification within the Zingiberales. While model systems have provided us with information about independent developmental systems of a few organisms and conserved developmental paradigms across widely divergent organisms, this information is only recently being used to understand the genetics of speciation. In 1996, Rudolf Raff wrote "Dichotomies of perspective have retarded the study of evolutionary developmental biology." Such dichotomies still prevail between organismal/evolutionary biology and molecular developmental biology disciplines. The interdisciplinary education and research program associated with this project will provide a new generation of researchers with the academic and technical tools necessary to create an intellectual environment primed for making breakthroughs in understanding the basic developmental genetics underlying specific evolutionary events.
