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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

Utah State University

Phylogeny

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Molecular Differentiation Of Astragalus Species And Varieties From The Western United States: The Chloroplast Dna Bridge Between Evolution And Molecular Systematics, Marwa Neyaz, Daniel Cook, Rebecca Creamer Mar 2020

Molecular Differentiation Of Astragalus Species And Varieties From The Western United States: The Chloroplast Dna Bridge Between Evolution And Molecular Systematics, Marwa Neyaz, Daniel Cook, Rebecca Creamer

Poisonous Plant Research (PPR)

Locoweeds are the most widespread poisonous plant problem in the world and have been reported in the Western United States since the 1800s, causing tremendous losses in livestock. Consumption of locoweeds by grazing animals stimulates the neurological disease, locoism, characterized by weight loss, ataxia, and lack of muscular coordination. The name locoweed is used for Astragalus and Oxytropis species known to contain swainsonine, the toxic principle produced by the plant endophytic fungus Undifilum. Astragalus includes 2,500-3,000 species and many varieties that have almost identical morphological characteristics that overlap among species, leading to improper identification. Therefore, the aim of this study …


On The Relationship Between Phylogenetic Diversity And Trait Diversity, Caroline M. Tucker, T. Jonathan Davies, Marc W. Cadotte, William D. Pearse May 2018

On The Relationship Between Phylogenetic Diversity And Trait Diversity, Caroline M. Tucker, T. Jonathan Davies, Marc W. Cadotte, William D. Pearse

Biology Faculty Publications

Niche differences are key to understanding the distribution and structure of biodiversity. To examine niche differences, we must first characterize how species occupy niche space, and two approaches are commonly used in the ecological literature. The first uses species traits to estimate multivariate trait space (so‐called functional trait diversity, FD); the second quantifies the amount of time or evolutionary history captured by a group of species (phylogenetic diversity, PD). It is often—but controversially—assumed that these putative measures of niche space are at a minimum correlated and perhaps redundant, since more evolutionary time allows for greater accumulation of trait changes. This …


Comparative Evolutionary Diversity And Phylogenetic Structure Across Multiple Forest Dynamics Plots: A Mega-Phylogeny Approach, D. L. Erickson, F. A. Jones, N. G. Swenson, N. Pei, N. Bourg, W. Chen, S. J. Davies, X. Ge, Z. Hao, R. W. Howe, C. L. Huang, A. Larson, S. Lum, James A. Lutz, K. Ma, M. Meegaskumbura, X. Mi, J. D. Parker Jan 2015

Comparative Evolutionary Diversity And Phylogenetic Structure Across Multiple Forest Dynamics Plots: A Mega-Phylogeny Approach, D. L. Erickson, F. A. Jones, N. G. Swenson, N. Pei, N. Bourg, W. Chen, S. J. Davies, X. Ge, Z. Hao, R. W. Howe, C. L. Huang, A. Larson, S. Lum, James A. Lutz, K. Ma, M. Meegaskumbura, X. Mi, J. D. Parker

Wildland Resources Faculty Publications

Forest dynamics plots, which now span longitudes, latitudes, and habitat types across the globe, offer unparalleled insights into the ecological and evolutionary processes that determine how species are assembled into communities. Understanding phylogenetic relationships among species in a community has become an important component of assessing assembly processes. However, the application of evolutionary information to questions in community ecology has been limited in large part by the lack of accurate estimates of phylogenetic relationships among individual species found within communities, and is particularly limiting in comparisons between communities. Therefore, streamlining and maximizing the information content of these community phylogenies is …