ID: 613 / 92

Category: Symposia

Track: Pending

Proposed Symposium Title: DIVERSIFICATION IN LARGE DOMINANT PLANT LINEAGES: INTEGRATION OF PHYLOGENY, ECOLOGY, PHYSIOLOGY, AND BIOGEOGRAPHY

Abstract: Adaptive radiation in habitats, pollinators, and herbivores – together with divergence in associated functional traits and species diversification – are key processes driving the genesis of plant diversity at all levels. But large, ecologically dominant lineages (e.g., Eucalyptus, Protea, Quercus, Salix, Sphagnum) offer exciting possibilities for analyzing the interrelationships among phylogeny, ecology, and physiology and their roles in shaping species distributions along environmental gradients as well as the characteristics of the habitats they dominate along such gradients. We will examine the insights obtained from several lineages in which the most advanced empirical and analytical approaches (e.g., phylogenomics, multiple common gardens, integration of photosynthetic, hydraulic, and allocational traits, ecological stoichiometry, analyses of species diversification and community assembly, and biogeographic reconstructions) are being used to evaluate the tradeoffs driving adaptive radiation, trait evolution, species distributions, speciation, species assemblages, and habitat characteristics in dominant plant lineages on different continents. To what extent have predictions from the first generation of studies on adaptive radiation and community assembly been validated or overthrown, and to what extent are we now detecting and explaining deep interrelationships among phylogeny, ecology, physiology, and biogeography at regional or global scales through integrated studies of large, dominant plant lineages? This symposium should be of broad interest to ecologists, ecophysiologists, evolutionary biologists, and biogeographers.

Speaker 1: • Jeannine Cavender-Bares • Distinguished McKnight University Professor, University of Minnesota-Twin Cities • cavender@umn.edu • Quercus as a model clade for integrating ecology and evolution

Speaker 2: • Jessica A. Savage • Associate Professor, University of Minnesota-Duluth • jsavage@d.umn.edu • Experimental tests of drivers of fitness and species distributions of Salix and Populus species along hydrological gradients

Speaker 3: • Duncan D. Smith • Post-doctoral research Associate, University of Wisconsin-Madison • ddsmith3@wisc.edu • Adaptive trait variation, phylogeny, and drivers of Eucalyptus species distributions along a climatic moisture gradient in southeastern Australia

Topics (Up to three): Ecology and plant communities

Topic 2: Ecophysiology

Topic 3: Macroevolution

Justification: The proposed symposium would integrate approaches to several IBC topics, including (10) ecology and plant communities, (11) ecophysiology, and (19) macroevolution, as well as (3) biogeography/phylogeography and (22) phylogenetics and phylogenetics to a lesser extent. This session should provide a tour de force of recent approaches, and greatly interest ecologists, ecophysiologists, evolutionary biologists, and biogeographers. As suggested by the abstract, we would assemble three additional speakers to discuss phylogeny, ecology, physiology, adaptive radiation, speciation, and biogeography in dominant plant lineages on other continents –including studies of non-angiosperms – and representing investigators from other countries and all career stages.