Adaptive Evolution of the Hawaiian Silversword Alliance
Description:
The Hawaiian silversword alliance provides an excellent, tractable system for understanding and connecting macro- and microevolutionary processes because it has undergone spectacular adaptive diversification despite minimal genetic differentiation. The HSA presents the opportunity to empirically test models of adaptation by integrating ecophysiological, molecular quantitative and population genetic, phylogenomic, and proteomic approaches. The empirical data gathered from this project, the genomic and proteomic resources developed, and the integrated cross-disciplinary analyses conducted will provide unprecedented abilities to examine the correlations between ecological diversification, genomic differentiation, and phenotypic divergence along ecophysiological, morphological, and geological gradients. The collaborative integration of ecological, genomic, and functional data will yield significant insight into the processes and mechanisms of speciation and ecological diversification in the context of this spectacular textbook example of adaptive evolution.
CUGI's Involvement:
CUGI is providing web hosting, computational access, data storage
and bioinformatic support for the project.