Why are some lineages of plants more diverse than others?

Begonia has over 2000 species, it’s sister genus Hillebrandia has only one species. Within Begonia some early branching lineages have produced only a few species, where sister lineage have radiated. In some cases this can be explained by geography, lineages moving into areas with many niches dpeciate more (SE Asia, the Andes), but this is not always the case. This project will map speciation rates across the Begonia phylogeny and use comparative genomics to identify loci which might underlie high speciation rates in specific clades. We will then study the function of these loci using recently developed crispr CAS9 techniques for Begonia.