NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship in Biology FY 2021: Replaying the tape of Genotype-Phenotype Evolution: Integrating Evidence of Climbing Habit Evolution across Alstroemeriaceae

This action funds an NSF Plant Genome Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2021. The fellowship supports a research and training plan in a host laboratory for the Fellow who also presents a plan to broaden participation in biology. The title of the research and training plan for this fellowship to Carrie M.

Tribble is "Replaying the tape of Genotype-Phenotype Evolution: Integrating Genetic, Anatomical, and Phylogenetic Evidence of Climbing Habit Evolution across Alstroemeriaceae" The host institution for the fellowship is the University of Hawai`i at Manoa and the Universidad de Antioquia (Colombia) and the sponsoring scientists are Dr. Rosana Zenil-Ferguson and Dr. Fernando Alzate-Guarín.

Different species occasionally evolve the same feature independently. This process, called convergent evolution, can occur in distantly or closely related species and may be due to different or similar changes in the underlying DNA. Often, convergent evolution occurs when distinct species evolve in response to similar environments.

To better understand how and why convergent evolution occurs, this research will gather data on the convergent evolution of climbing vines and model how changes in the environment where plants grow and modifications to DNA can lead to the evolution of shared, independently evolved features. Training objectives include acquiring new skills in mathematical modeling, fieldwork, plant anatomy and systematics.

Support through this fellowship will provide new opportunities for the Fellow to train students through two educational programs: a Spanish-language undergraduate and graduate student methods course at partner institutions in Colombia and an educational botany internship program for high school students at Lyon Arboretum at the University of Hawai`i.

Convergent and parallel evolution have generated some of the most iconic examples of environmental pressures driving phenotypes, including the mind-boggling similarity of distantly related succulent plants, the extraordinary ability to fly among vertebrate and invertebrate animals, and the novel emergence of antibiotic-resistance in bacteria despite the lack of resistance in common ancestors. Yet, despite the importance of these processes in producing much of the observed phenotypic variation, knowledge of the genomic and environmental factors that generate repeated phenotypes is lacking.

It is still unknown to what extent “convergence” at the morphological level is matched by convergence at the anatomical or molecular level. To better understand how repeated phenotypes are produced, the project will include detailed studies on a botanical family – Alstroemeriaceae – with clear variation in the climbing habit, a repeated phenotype and key innovation in flowering plants.

Through three aims, this research will characterize the detailed environmental, morphological, anatomical, and genetic underpinnings of this habit and test the hypothesis that shared genetic, environmental, and anatomical changes are responsible for the evolution of climbing by: (1) developing a novel model for identifying the molecular basis of repeated phenotypic evolution; (2) modeling the evolution of stem anatomy and environments of climbing and non-climbing plants; and (3) implementing the new model to identify the genetic underpinnings of climbing in Alstroemeriaceae. The data generated by this project include (1) field-measured environmental variables, (2) herbarium vouchers, (3) stem anatomy descriptions over a developmental series, (4) evolutionary relationships (phylogenies) of Alstroemeriaceae, (5) genome-level genetic sequences (RADSeq regions), and (6) a whole genome of Luzuriaga radicans.

All data will be made publicly available through online data repositories such as NCBI, TreeBASE, and Data Dryad. Keywords: convergent evolution, climbing, Alstroemeriaceae, phylogenetic comparative methods

This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.