Rutgers University - Newark, 2019
I'm a Botanist, Evolutionary Biologist, Ecologist, and Geneticist.
Why are some lineages of plants more diverse than others?
And it's an exciting time for this! Genomic technologies are revolutionizing the study of ecology and evolution
Interference:
Reproductive interactions among close relatives drive
floral character displacement in a hotspot of plant
diversity.
Isolation:
Floral variation, gene flow, and species coherence.
Introgression:
Replicated evolution of leaf form in neotropical Viburnum.
Species rich:
>600 species worldwide, approximately 300 endemic to Hengduan.
We collected >60 species from 100 locations in 2018.
Morphologically diverse:
Spectacular floral diversity and abundant homoplasy;
similar forms have evolved repeatedly.
Complex history of assembly:
Mountain uplift over millions of years, glacial cycles over
thousands of years, river and mountains barriers, lead to
constantly shuffling communities (and species
interactions).
Negative fitness consequences imposed by one organism on another by disrupting successful reproduction.
Does interspecific competition/interference drive floral divergence?
Is floral divergence associated with genetic divergence/speciation?
Elongate styles have evolved multiple times (Ree 2005)
and facilitate
pollen competition among species (Tong and Huang 2016).
Phenotypic overdispersion (limiting similarity); phylogenetic randomness (homoplasy); (Eaton & Ree 2012).
Divergent selection drives greater differences between populuations in sympatry than allopatry (e.g., benthic/limnetic sticklebacks).
The difficulty in Pedicularis is that there are so many
species.
I set out to develop a community model
of character displacement.
Hypothesis: Differences among populations (within species) are a result of interspecific interactions driving character displacement in local communities.
110 individuals across 15 targeted locations.
RAD-seq (original) PstI enzyme, Floragenex Inc.
5.5M reads per sample; ipyrad min50 denovo assembly
20K loci, 21% missing, 286K SNPs
110 individuals across 15 targeted locations.
RAD-seq (original) PstI enzyme, Floragenex Inc.
5.5M reads per sample; ipyrad min50 denovo assembly
20K loci, 21% missing, 286K SNPs
Lande (1976):
Selection pulls
the mean phenotype towards a local optimum, while
Gene Flow homogenizes phenotypes among populations,
and they evolve by stochastic
Drift.
Felsenstein (2002):
Eigen decomposition of the known migration matrix
yields a transformation to get independent trait means
(no covariances) and expected variances.
1. Focal phenotype (style length) measure across 15 populations.
2. Migration matrix estimated from
RAD data to model expected covariation of focal phenotypes.
3. Local biotic variables
phenotypic and phylogenetic distance to other Pedicularis in
each community. We will model local optima as a function of these
measurable variables.
Implementation: Bayesian hierarchical regression model in pyMC3: Fit residuals between observed and transformed trait means with biotic variables (allowing different slopes for different species).
P. cranolopha has a longer style when co-occurring with closer relatives; supports gametophytic "arms-race" hypothesis.
Interference:
Reproductive interactions among close relatives drive
floral character displacement in a hotspot of plant
diversity.
Isolation:
Floral divergence among populations affects
rates of gene and species coherence.
Introgression:
SNP based method for reconstructing admixture on trees.
Larger pollen grows faster and further, consistent with 10X higher migration from long to short style populations inferred from genomic data.
Taxonomically challenging; split into species/subspecies based on style length, pubescence, and presence of a "horned beak".
Hybrid zones: contact between populations with "horned beak" and without.
Hybrid zones: contact between populations with "horned beak" and without.
1
2
2
3
Identify gene for "horned beak" using admixture mapping and Fst outliers. We've sampled three independent hybrid zones. Did horns arise once?
Quantify pollen flow between horned and non-horned types in hybrid zones using fluorescent nanoparticles (quantum dots!).
On the evolutionary consequences of interspecific reproductive interactions.
1. Reproductive interference can drive divergence even in the absence of hybrids.
2. Character displacement can occur among a community of interacting species.
3. Intraspecific divergence driven by interspecific interactions
can promote speciation.
4. Migration (gene flow) can be a more appropriate model than phylogeny
for modeling divergence among populations.
Interference:
Reproductive interactions among close relatives drive
floral character displacement in a hotspot of plant
diversity.
Isolation:
Floral variation, gene flow, and species coherence.
Introgression:
Replicated evolution of leaf form in neotropical Viburnum.
Parallel/replicated evolution provides some of the strongest evidence of adaptation by natural selection
Identifying parallelism is inherently a phylogenetic problem, but many studies, often of rapid radiations, lack phylogenomic rigor.
(Mahler et al. 2010; 2013)
This is important because parallel patterns can arise by
several
(non-independent) mechanisms.
Densely sampled phylogenomics of the plant genus Viburnum. A mostly northern temperate clade of shrubs and small trees (165 species)
"Deep-scale" phylogenomics using RAD-seq data.
"Across-scales" phylogenomics using RAD-seq data.
Parallel evolution in isolated neotropical cloud forests.
Parallel evolution in isolated neotropical cloud forests.
Parallel evolution in isolated neotropical cloud forests.
Fine-scale sampling and experiments at 3 sites in Mexico.
How are ecotypes distributed within and across regions?
How are ecotypes distributed within and across regions?
How are ecotypes distributed within and across regions?
How are ecotypes distributed within and across regions?
121 samples, 36 species
hybrids excluded
211K loci (min4)
~60K/quartet
121 x 16.5Mbp matrix
1.6 million SNPs
reciprocal monophyly within ecotypes/species
in situ divergence of ecotypes within regions
On the evolutionary consequences of interspecific reproductive interactions.
1. RAD-seq allows phylogenomic analyses across evolutionary scales.
2. Viburnum has radiated in isolated cloud forests of the neotropics over the last ~10 Ma.
3. Phylogeny supports replicated in situ radiation into similar
ecotypes (leaf forms).
4. In situ divergence has occurred despite gene flow within regions,
and no gene flow is observed between regions.
5. It is important to test alternative phylogenetic hypotheses for
patterns of parallel evolution.
Richard Ree
Dave Boufford
Huang Shuang-Quan
De-Zhu Li
Patrick McKenzie
Jared Meek
Joe Felsenstein
Isaac Overcast
The Viburn'ers
NSF DEB
NSF DDIG
NSF EAPSI
Caterpillar
Columbia University