The International Research Fellowship Program enables U.S. scientists and engineers to conduct three to twenty-four months of research abroad. The program's awards provide opportunities for joint research, and the use of unique or complementary facilities, expertise and experimental conditions abroad.
This award will support a twenty-four month research fellowship by Dr. Matthew M. Unwin to work with Dr. Randall J. Bayer at the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Plant Industry, in Canberra, Australia.
This project will use molecular data to resolve evolutionary relationships of the Gnaphalieae (paper daisies or everlastings), a tribe of sunflowers (Asteraceae) with great diversity in South America, southern Africa and Australia. In the PI's dissertation research he focused on the evolutionary relationships of the Eriocaulaceae, a primarily South American plant family. Many similarities exist between the Eriocaulaceae and the Asteraceae, principally in that small flowers are aggregated into individual heads that mimic solitary flowers to pollinators. This feature, in part, has made it difficult to resolve evolutionary relationships in both families. Understanding the evolution and diversification of two distantly related plant families that share convergent patterns in their floral displays may reveal interesting trends when compared. This project will provide an excellent example of the application of molecular information to a major taxonomic group and contrasting it with inconsistent results from morphology and other approaches. The geographic distribution and time of divergence of the tribe will also make this study of broader importance as many taxonomists are dealing with such issues. The Asteraceae is one of the families that are intensively studied in the U.S.
