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Research Interests:
Postdoc: University of Maryland - College Park, College Park, MD I am interested in the genetic and/or regulatory changes that allowed the embryophytes to diversify so extensively on land after they diverged from their green algal relatives living in water. To answer this question I am sequencing ESTs for a species in each of the six orders of green algae. I will then take a comparative approach and look for homologs of land plant genes in the green algae that were potentially important in early land plant evolution. Dissertation: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, TX. Reticulate evolution in Helianthus (Asteraceae) I reconstructed the phylogeny of the genus, Helianthus (Asteraceae). Since a third of the species are thought to be of hybrid origin I used four independant nuclear markers and four plastid markers to recover the reticulate phylogenetic history for the genus. Although not completely resolved, these data were used to describe some very complex and interesting hybrid relationships in the perennial sunflowers. The evolution of secondary chemistry also was examined from flavonoid and STL characters extensively collected on sunflowers in the 1980s. Masters: Advisor for Masters Degree: Dr. Bob Patterson Molecular phylogeny of Polemonium (Polemoniaceae). Pictures |
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