The objective of this group effort is to study the genetic relationships among several cultivated plant species and their wild relatives for the purposes of addressing questions in basic and applied plant genetics, biogeography, plant evolution, and utilization of plant genetic resources. Research approaches include:
1) assessing genomic affinities using molecular and classical cytogenetic techniques, 2) determining molecular divergence using genetic distance analysis of DNA sequence data, 3)determining population structure by analysis of allelic frequency data, and 4) assessing genetic relationships by cladistic analysis of molecular markers.