RUI: Molecular and Morphological Data in the Gesneriaceae

9317775 Smith The Gesneriaceae, the African-violet family of plants, is a mostly tropical group in the New and Old Worlds, little known biologically except for those species prized as ornamentals. Dr. James Smith of Boise State University has pioneered the application of new DNA-based methods of analysis to problems of taxonomic delimitation and phylogenetic reconstruction in this family. With assistance from undergraduate students in research, he is exploring phylogenetic relationships in representative species of all tribes and most genera of the family, using traditional morphological characters and new evidence from chloroplast DNA. Concordance in these independent datasets will lay the basis for detailed studies of biogeography and of the evolution of pollination systems. The comparison and integration of data from different sources constitute an important arena of contemporary phylogenetic research. Taxa from predominantly tropical regions are rarely explored as model systems in this debate, because in general they are poorly known. The RUI project by Dr. James Smith will contribute new DNA data and refined morphological insights to the study of Gesneriaceae in particular and to taxonomic methodology in general.