UH Hilo biologist to lead $1.3M NSF grant to study the evolutionary genomics of Hawaiian flowering plants
The research team, led by Associate Professor of Biology Matthew Knope, hopes to provide key insights into how rapid evolutionary diversification happens on a genomic and developmental level.
By Susan Enright/UH Hilo Stories.
A team of researchers led by Matthew Knope, an evolutionary ecologist and associate professor of biology at the University of Hawaiʻi at Hilo, was recently awarded $1.3 million by the National Science Foundation to study genetic changes underlying adaptive evolution in a prolific Hawaiian flowering plant lineage.
Funded by the NSF Division of Environmental Biology Core Program on Systematics and Biodiversity Science, the team will study the evolutionary and functional genomics of koʻokoʻolau, a Hawaiian flowering plant in the daisy family Asteraceae. Koʻokoʻolau is of the genus Bidens, which includes roughly 230 species distributed worldwide with no less than 42 in Polynesia.
Other members of the research team are Daniel Jones of Auburn University and Christopher Muir of the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
“We will sequence the whole genomes of carefully selected Bidens species and determine the genes and developmental growth processes that are responsible for the incredible differences observed in the leaves, flowers, and fruits of these species that are found in extremely different habitats throughout Hawaiʻi and elsewhere,” says Knope, who specializes in the study of speciation and extinction. “In doing so, we hope to provide key insights into how rapid evolutionary diversification happens on a genomic and developmental level.”
In a previous study, Knope and a different team published a paper in 2020 investigating the history of the Hawaiian Bidens (Asteraceae) adaptive radiation, which is an increase in taxonomic and ecological diversity caused by elevated rates of speciation and how the majority of native Hawaiian plant species are formed.
The upcoming study has a strong teaching component to it as well.
“A high priority of this project is also to provide training in inter-disciplinary evolutionary approaches for undergraduates, graduate students, and postdoctoral researchers, including those from underrepresented groups,” says Knope, which will improve the scientific workforce “by preparing them to strongly contribute to scientific research, education, and technological advancements.”
The total award is $1,334,718 and the project begins in January 2025.
“This collaborative research is only made possible by combining the complementary expertise of the three labs involved and the generous support of the National Science Foundation,” says Knope.
“It is a great honor to get to work on understanding how our native Hawaiian flora has evolved to be what it is today and to help conserve it into the future,” he says.
Story by Susan Enright, public information specialist for the Office of the Chancellor and editor of UH Hilo Stories. She received her bachelor of arts in English and certificate in women’s studies from UH Hilo.
