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Investigating Plant Physiological Responses To Global Phylogenetic Diversity Of Glomeromycotina, David Z. Mowbray
Investigating Plant Physiological Responses To Global Phylogenetic Diversity Of Glomeromycotina, David Z. Mowbray
Honors Undergraduate Theses
Arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi are ubiquitous symbionts of terrestrial plant species with associations predominantly characterized as mutualistic. In addition to well-documented enhancement of host growth response, more recent analyses have demonstrated the conferral of host benefits under numerous biotic and abiotic stressors. However, much of the established evidence originates from studies involving limited AM fungal diversity. Accordingly, this study sought to evaluate the potential effects of inoculation on plant host physiological traits within a growth chamber environment, investigate potential correlations between host trait responses, & assess the degree of phylogenetic signal observed in trait responses due to the presence of …
Defense Trade-Offs In The Evolution Of The Fruits And Flowers Of Genus Cornus, Danielle R. De La Pascua
Defense Trade-Offs In The Evolution Of The Fruits And Flowers Of Genus Cornus, Danielle R. De La Pascua
Honors Undergraduate Theses
The optimal defense hypothesis predicts that the allocation of plant defenses across plant organs is proportional to the importance of a given organ to plant fitness. Despite this, much less work has been devoted to the study of reproductive defenses in plants relative to vegetative structures like leaves. This study examines the apparancy hypothesis and the resource availability hypothesis using a phylogenetic comparative approach within the genus Cornus . During the 2016 growing season, plants of 25 species of Cornus were tracked for flower and fruit phenology as well as sampled for floral and fruit tissue in a common garden …
Placing Birds On A Dynamic Evolutionary Map: Using Digital Tools To Update The Evolutionary Metaphor Of The "Tree Of Life", Sonia Stephens
Placing Birds On A Dynamic Evolutionary Map: Using Digital Tools To Update The Evolutionary Metaphor Of The "Tree Of Life", Sonia Stephens
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
This dissertation describes and presents a new type of interactive visualization for communicating about evolutionary biology, the dynamic evolutionary map. This web-based tool utilizes a novel map-based metaphor to visualize evolution, rather than the traditional "tree of life." The dissertation begins with an analysis of the conceptual affordances of the traditional tree of life as the dominant metaphor for evolution. Next, theories from digital media, visualization, and cognitive science research are synthesized to support the assertion that digital media tools can extend the types of visual metaphors we use in science communication in order to overcome conceptual limitations of traditional …
Biogeography And Diversification In The Neotropics: Testing Macroevolutionary Hypotheses Using Molecular Phylogenetic Data, Juan Manuel Daza Rojas
Biogeography And Diversification In The Neotropics: Testing Macroevolutionary Hypotheses Using Molecular Phylogenetic Data, Juan Manuel Daza Rojas
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
Lineage diversification in the Neotropics is an interesting topic in evolutionary biology and one of the least understood. The complexity of the region precludes generalizations regarding the historical and evolutionary processes responsible for the observed high diversity. Here, I use molecular data to infer evolutionary relationships and test hypotheses of current taxonomy, species boundaries, speciation and biogeographic history in several lineages of Neotropical snakes. I comprehensively sampled a widely distributed Neotropical colubrid snake and Middle American pitvipers and combined my data with published sequences. Within the colubrid genus Leptodeira, mitochondrial and nuclear markers revealed a phylogeograhic structure that disagrees with …
Modeling And Partitioning The Nucleotide Evolutionary Process For Phylogenetic And Comparative Genomic Inference, Todd Castoe
Modeling And Partitioning The Nucleotide Evolutionary Process For Phylogenetic And Comparative Genomic Inference, Todd Castoe
Electronic Theses and Dissertations
The transformation of genomic data into functionally relevant information about the composition of biological systems hinges critically on the field of computational genome biology, at the core of which lies comparative genomics. The aim of comparative genomics is to extract meaningful functional information from the differences and similarities observed across genomes of different organisms. We develop and test a novel framework for applying complex models of nucleotide evolution to solve phylogenetic and comparative genomic problems, and demonstrate that these techniques are crucial for accurate comparative evolutionary inferences. Additionally, we conduct an exploratory study using vertebrate mitochondrial genomes as a model …