Using transcriptomes to explore the evolution of the highly diverse and globally distributed Caryophyllales. Caryophyllales

Biologists have long known that traits and gene sequences evolve at different rates in different lineages of organisms, but it has been difficult to understand the causes for these shifts in evolutionary rate. For example, the Caryophyllales contain ~6% of all flowering plant species and exhibit extreme life history diversity, including tropical trees, temperate herbs, long-lived succulent cacti, and a diverse array of carnivorous plants. The rate of DNA sequence evolution among these lineages differs greatly. This project will leverage recent advances in transcriptome sequencing technologies and computational methods to evaluate the extent to which changes in life history and ecophysiology in plants are correlated with changes in the evolutionary rate. In collaboration with researchers worldwide, key traits will be characterized and >10,000 genes will be sequenced for 300 representative species of Caryophyllales. Analyses of evolutionary rate shifts in both traits and the genome will be used to assess how life history and ecophysiology have influenced genomic evolution, and vice versa.