Floral Developmental Evolution (EvoDevo)

Due to the natural diversity of floral forms, the Zingiberales provide an ideal model system to test the role of candidate floral development genes in the formation of diverse morphologies found in these plants. We are looking at the role of identified genes important in floral development of Arabidopsis in the development and evolution of novel floral structures (such as the labellum) within Zingiberales. Techniques include RNA-Seq and transcriptome analysis, in situ hybridization and RT-PCR to analyze gene expression patterns of candidate genes during defined stages of early and late stage floral development, and Virus Induced Gene Silencing (VIGS) and more recently CRISPR/Cas9 to create effective gene knock-downs.

To date we have projects focusing on CYC-like genes and floral symmetry (Bartlett and Specht 2011; Riva Bruenn), RAD/DIV and their interacting factors and how they influence floral symmetry evolution (R. Bruenn), the PISTILLATA/GLOBOSA-like gene lineage of B-class genes (Bartlett and Specht 2010), AP3/DEF lineage of B-class genes (A. Almeida), AGAMOUS lineage of C-class genes (A. Almeida et al. EvoDevo 2015), and the SEP genes (Yockteng et al. MBE 2015).  We are also interested in polarity genes (e.g. YABBY) and their role in the evolution of laminarity (Morioka et al. FIPS 2015) and are investigating the role of meristem genes in branching pattern evolution of umbeliferous inflorescences across Allium and other Asparagales (J. Martinez-Gomez & M.R. Dadpour).  We continue to be interested in the various Gene Regulatory Networks that influence developmental processes associated with evolutionary patterns (Almeida & Specht 2017) especially in Floral Fusion with Graduate Student Heather Phillips (Phillips et al. 2020).

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