
Daniel SpalinkTexas A&M University | TAMU · Department of Ecology and Conservation Biology
Daniel Spalink
Doctor of Philosophy
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52
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Introduction
Skills and Expertise
Publications
Publications (52)
Orchids are the most diverse family of angiosperms, with over 25 000 species, more than mammals, birds and reptiles combined. Tests of hypotheses to account for such diversity have been stymied by the lack of a fully resolved broad-scale phylogeny. Here, we provide such a phylogeny, based on 75 chloroplast genes for 39 species representing all orch...
The role of geography and ecology in speciation are often discussed in the context of phylogenetic niche conservatism (PNC), the propensity of lineages to retain ancestral niche related traits. However, a recent paradigm shift focuses instead on measuring divergence of these traits in conjunction with patterns of speciation. Under this framework, w...
Aim
Across angiosperm families, the area occupied by a family is strongly correlated with its richness. We explore the causes of this area‐richness correlation using the cosmopolitan family, Cyperaceae Juss., as a model. We test the hypothesis that, despite a proposed tropical origin, temperate lineages in the family diversified at elevated rates....
Systematically quantifying diversity across landscapes is necessary to understand how clade history and ecological heterogeneity contribute to the origin, distribution, and maintenance of biodiversity. Here, we chart the spatial structure of diversity among all species in the sedge family (Cyperaceae) throughout the USA and Canada. We first identif...
PREMISE OF THE STUDY: We used spatial phylogenetics to analyze the assembly of the
Wisconsin flora, linking processes of dispersal and niche evolution to spatial patterns of
floristic and phylogenetic diversity and testing whether phylogenetic niche conservatism
can account for these patterns.
METHODS: We used digitized records and a new molecular...
Background and Aims
Quantifying niche similarity among closely related species offers myriad insights into evolutionary history and ecology. In this study, our aim was to explore the interplay of geographic and niche space for rare, endemic plant species and determine if endemic habitats were environmentally similar or unique.
Methods
We character...
1. Generalization is difficult to quantify, and many classifications exist. A beta diversity framework can be used to establish a numeric measure of generalist tendencies that jointly describes many important features of species interactions, namely spatiotemporal heterogeneity. This framework is promising for studying generalized symbiotic relatio...
We used nuclear genomic data and statistical models to evaluate the ecological and evolutionary processes shaping spatial variation in species richness in Calochortus (Liliaceae, 74 spp.). Calochortus occupies diverse habitats in the western United States and Mexico and has a center of diversity in the California Floristic Province, marked by multi...
Poales are one of the most species‐rich, ecologically and economically important orders of plants and often characterise open habitats, enabled by unique suites of traits. We test six hypotheses regarding the evolution and assembly of Poales in open and closed habitats throughout the world, and examine whether diversification patterns demonstrate p...
Although airborne bacteria and fungi can impact human, animal, plant, and ecosystem health, very few studies have investigated the possible impact of their long-range transport in the context of more commonly measured aerosol species, especially those present in an urban environment. We report first-of-kind simultaneous measurements of the elementa...
What grows where? Knowledge about where to find particular species in nature must have been key to the survival of humans throughout our evolution. Over time, and as people colonised new land masses and habitats, interactions with the local biota led to a wealth of combined traditional and scientific wisdom about the distributions of species and th...
Poales are one of the most species-rich, ecologically and economically important orders of plants and often characterise open habitats, enabled by unique suites of traits. We test the hypotheses that Poales species are assembled into distinct phyloregions, with centres of high phylogenetic diversity and endemism clustered in tropical regions, and t...
Broˇzov´a et al. (2022) present a study, “Toward finally unraveling the phylogenetic relationships of Juncaceae with respect to another cyperid family, Cyperaceae”, with the premise of revising the phylogenetic re-lationships in Juncaceae and Cyperaceae based on Sanger sequencing of one nuclear rDNA (ITS) and two plastid regions (the gene rbcL and t...
Winter annuals comprise a large fraction of warm-desert plant species, but the drivers of their diversity are little understood. One factor that has generally been overlooked is the lack of obvious means of long-distance seed dispersal in many desert-annual lineages, which could lead to genetic differentiation at small spatial scales and, ultimatel...
Aim
Digitization of herbarium specimens and DNA sequencing efforts in the past decade have enabled integrative analyses of patterns of diversity and endemism in a phylogenetic context. Here, we compare the best available floristic databases to a comprehensive specimen database to examine spatial patterns of moss phylogenetic assembly. We test the h...
Winter annuals comprise a large fraction of warm-desert plant species, but the drivers of their diversity are little understood. One factor that has generally been overlooked is the lack of obvious means of long-distance seed dispersal in many desert-annual lineages, which could lead to genetic differentiation at small spatial scales and, ultimatel...
Previous attempts to elucidate the drivers of speciation mechanisms and spatial distribution patterns of biodiversity in mountain regions have treated different floras within a single geological region as one flora, ignoring the potential contributions of high habitat/ecosystem heterogeneity. Furthermore, current conservation strategies largely foc...
Cyperaceae (sedges) are the third largest monocot family and are of considerable economic and ecological importance. Sedges represent an ideal model family to study evolutionary biology because of their species richness, global distribution, large discrepancies in lineage diversity, broad range of ecological preferences, and adaptations including m...
Carex section Phacocystis (Cyperaceae) is one of the most diverse and taxonomically complex groups of sedges (between 116‐147 spp.) with a worldwide distribution in a wide array of biomes. It has a very complicated taxonomic history, with numerous disagreements among different treatments. We studied the biogeography and niche evolution in a phyloge...
Changes in chromosome number as a result of fission and fusion in holocentric chromosomes have direct and immediate effects on genome structure and recombination rates. These in turn may influence ecology and evolutionary trajectories profoundly. Sedges of the genus Carex (Cyperaceae) comprise ca. 2000 species with holocentric chromosomes that evol...
Aim: Madagascar is renowned for its unparalleled biodiversity and endemism. With many ecosystems under threat, research is urgently needed on its unique plant diversity. This applies both to Madagascar's forests and treeless vegetation types. Sedges (Cyperaceae) are among the top 10 species‐richest angiosperm families in Madagascar (310 native spec...
Morphological characterizations of genera in Cyperaceae tribe Abildgaardieae have been highly problematic and the subject of much debate. Earlier molecular phylogenetic studies based on Sanger sequencing and a limited sampling have indicated that several generic circumscriptions are not monophyletic. Here, we provide the first phylogenetic hypothes...
Phylogenetic studies of Carex L. (Cyperaceae) have consistently demonstrated that most subgenera and sections are para‐ or polyphyletic. Yet taxonomists continue to use subgenera and sections in Carex classification. Why? The Global Carex Group here takes the position that the historical and continued use of subgenera and sections serves to (1) org...
PREMISE: We tested 25 classic and novel hypotheses regarding trait–origin, trait–trait, and trait– environment relationships to account for flora-wide variation in life history, habit, and especially reproductive traits using a plastid DNA phylogeny of most native (96.6%, or 1494/1547 species) and introduced (87.5%, or 690/789 species) angiosperms...
Editorial on the Research Topic Phylogenomic Approaches to Deal With Particularly Challenging Plant Lineages
An amendment to this paper has been published and can be accessed via a link at the top of the paper.
Carex (Cyperaceae) is a megadiverse genus which ranks among the five largest angiosperm genera, with about 2000 species. The authors investigated the main biogeographic and lineage diversification history in the genus using a global phylogenetic sampling comprising 66% of accepted species. The study suggests that there may not be just one answer to...
The megadiverse genus Carex (c. 2000 species, Cyperaceae) has a nearly cosmopolitan distribution, displaying
an inverted latitudinal richness gradient with higher species diversity in cold‐temperate areas of the Northern
Hemisphere. Despite great expansion in our knowledge of the phylogenetic history of the genus and many molecular
studies focusing...
Mycobacterium bovis is responsible for bovine tuberculosis in both animals and humans. Despite being one of the most important global zoonotic disease, data related to the ecology and pathogenicity of bovine tuberculosis is scarce, especially in developing countries. In this report, we examined the dynamics of M. bovis transmission among dairy catt...
Tuberculosis (TB) represents a significant challenge to public health authorities, especially with the emergence of drug-resistant (DR) and multidrug-resistant (MDR) isolates of Mycobacterium tuberculosis. We sought to examine the genomic variations among recently isolated strains of M. tuberculosis in two closely related countries with different p...
Large-scale changes in chromosome number have been associated with diversification rate shifts in many lineages of plants. For instance, several ancient rounds of polyploidization events have been inferred to promote genomic differentiation and/or isolation and, consequently, angiosperm diversification. Dysploidy, although less studied, has been su...
A proactive approach to conservation must be predictive, anticipating how habitats will change and which species are likely to decline or prosper. We use composite species distribution modeling to identify suitable habitats for 18 members of the North American Atlantic Coastal Plain Flora (ACPF) since the Last Glacial Maximum and project these into...
Premise of the Study
We present the first plastome phylogeny encompassing all 77 monocot families, estimate branch support, and infer monocot‐wide divergence times and rates of species diversification.
Methods
We conducted maximum likelihood analyses of phylogeny and BAMM studies of diversification rates based on 77 plastid genes across 545 monoco...
The integration of genomics and phylogenetics allows new insight into the structure of gene tree discordance, the relationships among gene position, gene history, and rate of evolution, as well as the correspondence of gene function, positive selection, and gene ontology enrichment across lineages. We explore these issues using the tribe Capsiceae...
Theory postulates that dietary specialization in mammalian herbivores is enabled by a specialized set of liver enzymes that process the high concentrations of similar plant secondary metabolites (PSMs) in the diets of specialists. To investigate whether qualitative and quantitative differences in detoxification mechanisms distinguish dietary specia...
Aim
Orchidaceae is the most species‐rich angiosperm family and has one of the broadest distributions. Until now, the lack of a well‐resolved phylogeny has prevented analyses of orchid historical biogeography. In this study, we use such a phylogeny to estimate the geographical spread of orchids, evaluate the importance of different regions in their...
Table S1. Sample sizes for each site. Sample sizes for each lineage (Group 1, Group 2, Group 3, and hybrids) within sites are given in parentheses.
Table S2. Mutation‐scaled migration rate, M (= m/μ), with 95% confidence intervals for each Amphicarpatea bracteata genetic group.
Table S3. High resolution melt (HRM) primers and alleles used to assi...
The amphicarpic annual legume Amphicarpaea bracteata is unusual in producing aerial and subterranean cleistogamous flowers that always self-fertilize and, less commonly, aerial chasmogamous flowers that outcross. Although both morphologic and genetic variants are known in this highly selfing species, debate continues over whether this variation is...
We present the first phylogenomic analysis of relationships among all ten families of Liliales, based on 75 plastid genes from 35 species in 29 genera, and 97 additional plastomes stratified across angiosperm lineages. We used a supermatrix approach to extend our analysis to 58 of 64 genera of Liliales, and calibrated the resulting phylogeny agains...
Carex (Cyperaceae), with an estimated 2000 species, nearly cosmopolitan distribution and broad range of habitats, is one of the largest angiosperm genera and the largest in the temperate zone. In this article, we provide argument and evidence for a broader circumscription of Carex to add all species currently classified in Cymophyllus (monotypic),...
With approximately 2000 species, tribe Cariceae (Cyperaceae) comprises a morphologically distinctive cosmopolitan clade, with holocentric chromosomes (N = 6 to 56), complex biogeographical patterns, and habitat diversity ranging from rainforests to deserts. Such a remarkable combination of characteristics should make Cariceae an ideal model for stu...
We re-examined the recent study by Palazzesi et al., (2012) published in the Biological Journal of the Linnean Society (107: 67–85), that presented the historical diversification of Geraniales using BEAST analysis of the plastid spacer trnL–F and of the non-coding nuclear ribosomal internal transcribed spacers (ITS). Their study presented a set of...
Emerald ash borer (EAB) (Agrilus planipennis), an introduced wood-boring insect, has killed millions of ash (Fraxinus spp.) trees in the Midwest region of the United States and Canada. However, in some areas where EAB has caused almost complete mortality of mature ash trees, a small number of healthy ash trees intermingled with the dead ash trees h...