Revisión Molecular de las Especies del Genero Dracula Orchidaceae y Cultivo en Invernadero e In Vitro

  • Cerna Cevallos, Marco Fernando (PI)
  • Wu, Shasha (CoI)
  • Maldonado Toro, Lucia Fernanda (Student)
  • Medrano Perez, David Alejandro (Student)
  • Mencias Mendez, Hugo Fernando (Student)
  • Montalvo Pazmiño, Miguel Angel (Student)
  • Perez Reyes, Daniela Belen (Student)
  • Salazar Ponce, Telmo Fernando (Student)
  • Vargas Garcia, Luciana Moncerrat (Student)

Project Details

Description

General objective Study the molecular and evolutionary characteristics of the species of the genus Dracula, including the techniques for their cultivation in greenhouses and laboratories. Justification 100 new species of plants are described in Ecuador every year, this rate does not seem to decrease, which tells us that there is a lot of work in this field, the largest group of plants are orchids and they represent an urgent goal to meet 6.Many species are on the waiting list, to be identified, since they have been collected, but they have not been able to identify them, either because of their size, morphological uniformity and the insufficient number of specialists for this work. Molecular methods of identification can solve these problems, but they are still under development, on the other hand, the plant material for study is a limitation, especially when they are widely dispersed. An advantage at this point are the characteristics of Ecuador, all the biological diversity is concentrated in a small region, there is a high degree of endemism, the work carried out by collectors and the staff of the Botanical Gardens also joins, which present an opportunity to have ideal living material for our study. The DNA segments: matK, rcbL and ITS, are currently used for the molecular identification of plants, but the variability of these segments is not present in all plant taxa, so other more effective segments are sought for each taxon or establish different combinations between those already known that allow discriminating at the species level, finding the ideal segment will have a better identification system and properly order in species and genera that the species can identify in a short time, especially in groups whose size and morphology is very homogeneous, therefore difficult to distinguish. In another aspect, the dispersion of species and evolutionary mechanisms can be explained today with phylogenetic studies, using the molecular identification database, combined with geographic information, this will allow us to explain why there was a concentration of species in Ecuador, as they were dispersed to other similar regions already End the evolutionary process. Species of the Dracula genus that have not been identified correctly, by using a standardized tool, will allow the species to be adequately delimited. In addition, the molecular data will also serve to establish a phylogenetic picture that explains the relationships between the species and analyze the characteristics of their distribution and evolution. On the other hand, cultivation methods for the species of this genus are known, but in this work they will optimize the techniques for the maintenance and reproduction of the species of this group.
StatusFinished
Effective start/end date23/01/1723/01/17

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