Morphological convergence after entering a new biome: A quantitative test with independent lineages of Mimosa (Fabaceae) from Cerrado

• Grant number: 24/00323-9
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Master
• Start date: November 01, 2024
• Status: Discontinued
• Field of knowledge: Biological Sciences - Botany
• Principal Investigator: Leonardo Maurici Borges
• Grantee: Thiago Takeshi Goto
• Host Institution: Centro de Ciências Biológicas e da Saúde (CCBS). Universidade Federal de São Carlos (UFSCAR). São Carlos , SP, Brazil
• Associated scholarship(s): 25/03318-9 - Testing hypothesis of morphological convergence in Mimosa (Fabaceae) with models of adaptive evolution., BE.EP.MS

Abstract

Selective pressures from the same biome can favor the emergence of convergent morphological characters in independent lineages. In the Cerrado, a relatively young biome, adaptive convergences related to fire protection are well documented. However, it is not known whether and how other vegetative and floral characters responded to other environmental pressures that distinguish the Cerrado from surrounding and evolutionarily older biomes. Here we propose to use Mimosa (Fabaceae), a megadiverse genus (600 species), with high diversity in the Cerrado (250 species distributed in independent lineages) to test the presence and variation in the degree of convergence of vegetative and floral characters. To do this, we will analyze morphological data in a comparative phylogenetic context. We will infer a morphospace and a phenogram for the genus, test the multivariate phylogenetic signal of the morphological data and test the convergence of lineages in the morphospace. This research will form a master in comparative biology and answer open questions about the role of convergence in the morphological evolution of plants.