Conferences

Botany 2020 goes online -- and we follow!

Anonymous — Sun, 02 Aug 2020 03:58:38 +0000

Botany 2020 goes online -- and we follow! Anonymous (not verified) Sat, 08/01/2020 - 21:58

Many members of the lab took part in what was an excellent virtual Botany conference. This new format meant that much broader participation by botanists around the world, and the Botany team did an outstanding job of making the online conference fun and interactive.

Chelsea presented a lightning talk on her research showing intraspecific variation in self-incompatibility in Physalis acutifolia (photo below left)
Rocío and Peter Wilf presented a new lantern fruit fossil from Laguna del Hunco
Luke gave the first peek into our new transcriptomic-based phylogeny for Petunieae. Click here to listen to it!
Sukuan presented his phylogenetic analysis of Heliamphora (Sarracenaceae) as part of the colloquium on Plant life in Neotropical Rocky outcrops
Miranda shared her work showing that the metallic blue color ofViburnum tinus fruit (below right) are due to plates of lipids (now published in Current Biology and featured in the New York Times!)
Jesse presented his new RADSeq phylogeny for Clematis section Viorna, a complex North American group with colorful urceolate flowers

Congrats to everyone on their wonderful presentations!

The lab had a great time taking part in the first virtual Botany meetings.

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Summer meeting round-up!

Anonymous — Tue, 18 Jun 2019 23:13:39 +0000

Summer meeting round-up! Anonymous (not verified) Tue, 06/18/2019 - 17:13

At Evolution 2019 in Providence: Luke is going to present his mathematical model of the anthocyanin pathway and results of simulated evolutionary transitions between pigment types [here's his talk!]. On Monday, Ashley will talk about her undergraduate research at TAMU-CC suggesting that humans have driven the evolution of flatter shells in limpets in the Hawaiian Islands. Finally, Stacey is organizing a spotlight session with Josef Uyeda on process-based models of macroevolutionary trait evolution.

At Botany 2019 in Tucson: Juan will share his work on the relationship between pollen growth and development of the inflated fruiting calyx in Physalis (that's his cool image on the left!). Luis will discuss the relationship between the evolution of leaf morphology in relation to climate in Solanaceae. Jesse will also present a poster on his preliminary phylogenetic studies in Clematis subg. Viorna (the North American leather flowers), and Sukuan will share his work on the phylogeny and biogeography of Heliamphora, the South American Marsh Pitcher Plants. Will will be presenting his software LeafMachine, which gathers morphometric data from herbarium sheets. As one of the two BSA student representatives, Chelsea will be co-presenting a workshop on writing research and teaching statements as well as speaking about her taxonomic work in Physalis with Rocío. Finally, Ashley will be giving a talk about genetic diversity in seagrass based on her previous undergraduate research and a lightning talk on her REU work this summer about the regulation of floral carotenoid pigments!

And, at the Colombian Botanical Congress in Florencia, Rocío will give a talk about phylogenetics and inflated calyx evolution in the tribe Physalideae in the Latin American Solanaceae Symposium.

Conference season is upon us and the lab has lots of presentations coming up soon.

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The lab goes to SICB 2019

Anonymous — Sun, 13 Jan 2019 14:36:14 +0000

The lab goes to SICB 2019 Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 01/13/2019 - 07:36

This year, the Society for Integrative and Comparative Biology made a push to include more plant biology in their conference, with two days of plant talks, posters and prizes. Stacey gave a talked about her work with Julienne on modeling the anthocyanin pathway and gave a shout-out to Luke, who has pushed this line of work. Here is the abstract for Luke's SICB talk and you can find the associated bioarxiv manuscript here. Max was also at the meeting and presented his research modeling how expression variation relates to flavonoid production in Iochroma (abstract). We all enjoyed the (mostly) warm sunny Tampa weather.

Max, Luke and Stacey help to bring plant bio to the SICB meetings in Tampa.

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Taking our show on the road!

Anonymous — Tue, 17 Jul 2018 04:33:37 +0000

Taking our show on the road! Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 07/16/2018 - 22:33

Here's the line-up for this summer:

At Botany 2018 in Rochester, MN

Lexi Kantor will share her honors thesis project on geographic patterns in crossability in Physalis (tomatillo and its relatives) and take part in the PLANTS program.
Chelsea Pretz will be presenting a poster on phylogenetic incongruence and interspecific crossability in Physalis and leading several activities in her role as a BSA student representative.
Sukuan Liu will present his work on resolving the phylogeny of Heliamphora, the South American pitcher plants.
Rob Laport will present a talk jointly authored with Julienne Ng about the consequences of polyploidy. Check out their recent paper on this topic.
Stacey has co-organized a symposium with Chris Pires about the evolution of plant chemical diversity and will kick off the session with a joint talk. She'll also present Rocío Deanna's research on the evolution of the dramatic inflated calyx in physaloids.

At Evolution 2018 in Montpellier, France

Julia Dupin has been invited to present in the SSB's Ernst Mayr symposium (congratulations, Julia!), and she will be speaking about the historical biogeography and environmental niche evolution of Datureae.

We are excited to share our research at these meetings and learn about what our colleagues have been up to!

Check out what lab members will be presenting at Botany 2018 in Rochester and Evolution 2018 in Montpellier.

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Good times at SSB 2018 in Columbus

Anonymous — Tue, 12 Jun 2018 03:29:12 +0000

Good times at SSB 2018 in Columbus Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/11/2018 - 21:29

We spent three days talking phylogenetics with our fellow systematic biologists at the SSB Standalone, held on the Ohio State University campus in Columbus. Chelsea and Sukuan presented posters about their dissertation work on wild tomatillos and South American pitcher plants, respectively. Stacey described former student Dan's work on hybridization in Iochroma in the Species Tree Estimation Workshop, organized by Lacey Knowles and Laura Kutbatko. The slides are available here. Beyond the science, we enjoyed meeting new folks and eating ice cream at the social!

Chelsea, Sukuan and Stacey traveled to Columbus, Ohio for the Society of Systematic Biologists Standalone meeting.

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2017 Meeting Line-up

Anonymous — Fri, 23 Jun 2017 14:56:44 +0000

2017 Meeting Line-up Anonymous (not verified) Fri, 06/23/2017 - 08:56

At Evolution 2017 in Portland:

Julienne Ng will be talking about how floral anthocyanin pigments evolve in a stepwise manner in the tomato family, Solanaceae.
Rob Laport will be presenting a talk on his research into polyploid pollinator differences and ecological speciation, and a poster describing Will's undergraduate research into the effect of non-native species on community structure using comparative methods.
Max Larter will be giving a talk about gene expression and the macroevolution of flower color in Iochrominae.
Stacey will kick off the Sunday afternoon SSB symposium with a short introduction on phylogenetic approaches to connecting genotypes and phenotypes.

At Botany 2017 in Fort Worth:

Rocío Deanna will be giving a talk about the phylogenetic relationships and biogeographical origin of Deprea (Solanaceae) and will be presenting a poster about the distribution and conservation assessment of this neotropical genus.
Julia Dupin will give a talk on the historical biogeography and environmental niche evolution of Datureae, and present a poster on the evolution of fruit type in Datureae.
Chelsea Pretz will be presenting a poster on niche modeling in the genus Physalis (tomatillo and its relatives).

Stacey will also be traveling later this summer to the Pan-Am Evo-Devo meeting in Calagary where she will give a presentation about genetics and the macroevolution of flower color in the tomato family.

We look forward to catching up with all our colleagues at the meetings! Let's talk science!

Look who's talking! Here's the line-up for our presentations at Evolution and Botany this week.

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