Format: ORAL

Jennifer R. Mandel1, Mauricio Bonifacino2, Erika R. Moore1, Paige A. Ellestad1, Linda E. Watson3, Carolina Siniscalchi1, Ramhari Thapa1, Daniel S. Jones4, Reid Selby4, Brannan Cliver4, Vandana Gurung4, Emily Yaklich5, Jakub Baczynski5, John M. Burke5, Ashley Crook6, Zachary Nimchuk6, Alex Harkess7, Zachary Meharg7

1 Department of Biological Sciences, University of Memphis, Memphis, USA 2 Departamento de Biología Vegetal: Laboratorio de Botánica, Universidad de la República, Montevideo, Uruguay 3 Department of Plant Biology, Oklahoma State University, Stillwater, USA 4 Department of Biological Sciences, Auburn University, Auburn, USA 5 Plant Biology Department, University of Georgia, Athens, USA 6 Department of Biology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA 7 HudsonAlpha Institute for Biotechnology, Huntsville, USA

Asteraceae or Compositae comprise 10% of all angiosperm species and include numerous species of economic, medicinal, and industrial value. Despite this, relatively few large-scale genomic resources exist for the family, especially given its size/diversity, which limits our ability to understand the evolution of this fascinating family and to link genes to phenotypes. Moreover, studies of genomic and evolutionary mechanisms that have driven the success of Asteraceae have been hampered by the lack of a well-resolved phylogeny. We have used a phylogenomic framework to fully resolve the Asteraceae backbone. This work supported a late Cretaceous origin followed by explosive diversifications that resulted in the familys 30,000+ extant species. Recently, our group has been working toward enhancing available resources for the family with genomic and transcriptomic resources for diverse species, including several key outgroups. We are also addressing the outstanding need for genome editing tools by working toward developing novel approaches in Asteraceae. These resources will be made freely available to enable comparative and functional genomics, as well as crop improvement efforts in the broader community. This work provides an integrative framework for future studies aimed at understanding the role of the macroevolutionary patterns and processes that generated the enormous species diversity of Asteraceae.