SRA

Two central themes in plant genomics have fully emerged in recent years: (1) polyploidy has beenpervasive in shaping the diversity of crops and their wild relatives, and (2) epistatic interactions betweencytoplasmic (i.e., mitochondrial and plastid) and nuclear genomes are complex and key to determiningthe outcome of hybridization/introgression. However, remarkably little attention has been paid to therelationship between polyploidy and cytonuclear interactions, even though the generation of polyploids isexpected to perturb the stoichiometric and epistatic basis of these interactions. The research programpresented here will address this gap by performing genome-wide, hypothesis-based tests of the effects ofmerging two or more differentiated genomes on cytonuclear interactions, using five model genera thatspan the diversity of crops and allopolyploid angiosperms. The research will be integrated with outreachand education efforts from the middle-school level up to high school teachers and university faculty, alltoward broadening participation in computational biology, plant genomics, and scientific research moregenerally.