Graduate Thesis Or Dissertation
 

Seeking sacred sequences: A comparative population-genetic analysis of Ficus religiosa chloroplast and mitochondrial DNA

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  • Chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) and mitochondrial DNA (mtDNA) are often used for the study of plant genetics and evolution. Plastid and mitochondrial genome sequences have allowed us to investigate plant evolution on a genetic level to infer molecular evolutionary rates, population-genetic processes, co-evolutionary phenomena, and numerous evolutionary questions and hypotheses. Ficus religiosa, a fig species commonly referred to as Bodhi trees and sacred peepal trees, has broad ecological and cultural relevance along with growing scientific and medicinal features of interest. However, evolutionary, and genetic analyses of this species are lacking, despite this growing interest and cultural ties to Buddhism and other spiritual traditions of Asia. This thesis aims to investigate evolutionary processes in F. religiosa organelle DNA through a population-genetic lens and interrogate various historical and apocryphal stories surrounding claims of descent from the historical Bodhi tree in Bodhgaya, India under which Siddhartha Gautama, the Buddha, sat during his enlightenment in ~500-600 BCE. This thesis research relies on a collection of 61 different F. religiosa samples from across the globe, including representatives from two sacred Bodhi tree lineages: the Bodhi tree currently at the Buddha’s seat of enlightenment in Bodhgaya, India and Sri Maha Bodhi in Anuradhapura, Sri Lanka. The first major objective was to examine the relative levels of DNA sequence polymorphism in F. religiosa cpDNA and mtDNA using population genetic metrics such as nucleotide diversity (π). A second objective was to investigate the population-genetic structure in the 61 F. religiosa samples to investigate the genetic relationships of the plants examined, and to assess claims of descent from the original sacred Bodhi tree. The thesis results revealed higher genetic diversity in cpDNA to mtDNA by a factor of ~15, consistent with patterns observed in most other plant species. Population-genetic structure analyses of the 61 F. religiosa samples for cpDNA showed four distinct clusters; 5/5 samples known to be derived from the Bodhgaya Bodhi tree and 4/4 samples from the Sri Maha Bodhi tree all showed near 1.0 probability of membership to the same cluster. Four trees with uncertain apocryphal stories were analyzed; 3/4 showed high probability of membership to the same cluster as the Bodhgaya Bodhi and Sri Maha Bodhi. This thesis provided new insights into F. religiosa organellar genome evolution and an important historical-genetic information for a tree lineage held sacred by hundreds of millions of people around the globe, and a novel genetic approach to assessing claims of ancestry to the sacred Bodhi tree lineage.  
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  • Pending Publication
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  • 2023-01-03 to 2023-08-05

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