Resolving the Phylogeny of North American Milkweeds through the Application of Massively Parallel Sequencing Technology

The resolution of systematic relationships among milkweed species will help to improve the classification of the genus. Furthermore, these results will provide a robust foundation for studies of milkweed floral diversity, pollination biology and biogeography. Milkweeds have long served as a model system for the evolution of plant defenses against herbivory, and results from this research will contribute to a better understanding of how plants co-evolve with their pests. The methods developed here achieve a savings in cost, time, and effort beyond any previously attained in comparative genomics, and will be directly applicable to phylogenetic, population genomic and ecological genomic studies of animals, fungi and plants.