| Grant number: | 12/18396-5 |
| Support Opportunities: | Scholarships in Brazil - Post-Doctoral |
| Start date: | January 01, 2013 |
| End date: | December 31, 2016 |
| Field of knowledge: | Biological Sciences - Botany - Plant Taxonomy |
| Principal Investigator: | Renato de Mello-Silva |
| Grantee: | Juliana Lovo |
| Host Institution: | Instituto de Biociências (IB). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). São Paulo , SP, Brazil |
| Associated scholarship(s): | 14/00803-9 - Patterns of floral evolution in Trimezieae (Iridaceae), BE.EP.PD |
Abstract Iridaceae are a morphologically distinctive and diverse family of monocotyledons. The flowers in the family vary greatly in shape, size and ornamentation and this diversity has been historically providing important taxonomic characters. Within tribe Trimezieae, style and stigma are especially diverse and elaborate structures widely used in the group taxonomy, usually associated to other floral characters such as shape and tepal ornamentations. However, the homology of these complex characters has never been investigated and recent molecular phyogenetic analyses have showed the genera are polyphyletic indicating also these morphological characters are actually highly homoplastic. The results demonstrate the urgency of examination in greater detail these morphological features allowing a better understand of their evolution and possible role in the tribe systematics. Moreover, investigate the functionality of such flower morphological traces, such as pollinators interactions, is crucial to better understanding how they evolved. For this reason, to integrate the development studies of flower structures to knowledge on flower biology within Trimezieae can help to elucidate the origin of morphological diversity in the tribe and Iridaceae as a whole. Within this context, the diversity and relatively restricted distribution of Trimezieae, a neotropical group centred in Brazil, makes it great a model to this kind of approach. The main goal of this study is to better understand patterns of floral evolution in Trimezieae and ultimately be able to determine appropriate characters/character states for delimiting clades. This will be achieved by associating ontogenetic studies of flower structures, to investigations on flower biology within the tribe, in a phyogenetic framework. New taxa and molecular characters will be added the previously existing phylogeny for Trimezieae, providing an appropriate framework for these approaches. (AU) | |
| News published in Agência FAPESP Newsletter about the scholarship: | |
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