Life Sciences Commons^™

A Systematic And Biogeographic Study Of Trillium (Melanthiaceae), Jayne A. Lampley

Doctoral Dissertations

Trillium (Melanthiaceae, Parideae) has a disjunct distribution occurring in eastern and western North America, and eastern Asia. Past studies have examined the phylogeny and historical biogeography of Melanthiaceae and Parideae, however these studies either did not fully examine these aspects within Trillium or did not employ sufficiently broad taxonomic or character sampling to clarify relationships among taxa. The first phylogenetic analysis presented in this study provides a resolved phylogeny for Trillium s.l. and Paris s.l. by using a dataset of 70 plastid coding genes and by sampling broadly from Trillium s.s., Pseudotrillium, Trillidium, Paris s.s., Daiswa, and Kinugasa. The results …

Systematics And Biogeography Of The Cortinarius Violaceus Group And Sequestrate Evolution In Cortinarius (Agaricales), Emma Harrower

Doctoral Dissertations

Phylogenetics is a powerful tool used for illuminating the diversity of life on Earth, their evolution and their ecology. I created a multi-gene phylogenetic tree of Cortinarius section Cortinarius and uncovered five previously overlooked species, increasing the number of species in the section from seven to twelve. All members of the clade possess both cheilocystidia and pleurocystidia and possess a pigment known as (R)-39,49-dihydroxybphenylalanine. Ancestral state reconstruction estimated that the ancestral host was most likely an angiosperm, switching hosts when encountering novel host species in new lands, and only C. violaceus associating with the Pinaceae in North America. Biogeographic analysis …

Monographic Studies In The Genus Polyporus (Basidiomycotina), Dirk Krueger

Doctoral Dissertations

The aim of this dissertation research was an examination of the homobasidiomycete genus Polyporus as currently circumscribed. Emphasis was on addressing the genus by a variety of tools appropriate to modern monographic studies, without producing another worldwide monograph. In addition to morphological examination, which traditionally was the basis of all fungal systematics, mating experiments with monokaryotic cultures, and contemporary phylogenetic tools were used.

For P. alveolaris, P. arcularius, P. badius, P. brumalis, P. ciliatus, P. dictyopus, P. guianensis, P. melanopus, P. tubaeformis, P. tuberaster, P. tricholoma, P. umbellatus, and …