Presenter: Liam Beckman
Mentors: George Weiblen and Erin Treiber, College of Biological Sciences, University of Minnesota
Poster: 3
Major: Biology
Mutualisms, interactions between species that are beneficial to both partners, are useful systems for investigating how interactions may affect the evolution and diversification of lineages. Interactions between ants and plant species of the genus Cecropia are a classic example of mutualism but the origin and evolution of the mutualism is poorly understood. We examined whether the inclusion of an exon-primed intron-crossing (EPIC) marker could improve our understanding of Cecropieae phylogeny. We performed a Bayesian phylogenetic analysis of 15 species from which EPIC sequences were obtained. By comparing clade support from analyses with and without EPIC, we concluded that the addition of a third gene region strongly supports the hypothesis that the Afrotropical and antless genus Musanga was derived from a Cecropia ancestor and is most closely related to the antless neotropical species C. sciadophylla. Future research will work to add increased resolution to the Cecropieae phylogeny in order to achieve a greater understanding of this dynamic biological interaction—pointing the way to predicting how environmental factors such as climate change may shape mutualistic relationships between multivariate forms of life.