BRYOLOGY AT UC BERKELEY

The bryophyte collection and associated programs of research and training, previously a rather neglected part of the herbaria, have grown in a quantum leap since 1993, with the addition of new staff members and specimens. Dr. Brent Mishler and Dr. Daniel Norris have collaborated to make UC one of the largest active centers for research and training in bryology in the United States, and the only such center in the western part of the country.

Dr. Mishler's empirical research on bryophytes involves continued biosystematic studies of the diverse moss genus Tortula: a recent revision of the genus in Mexico (Mishler, 1994), physiological studies of desiccation-tolerance (Oliver et al. 1993), and a general study of asexual modes of reproduction (Newton &;Mishler, 1994). He also remains interested in the higher-level phylogeny of bryophytes. Dr. Mishler is interested in the theory of systematics, including the meaning and application of the phylogenetic species concept, and methods for phylogenetic reconstruction, especially character analysis and weighting.

Dr. Norris recently retired from Humboldt State University, where he carried out an active program of teaching and supervising Master's students (his students included R. Dewey, D. Jamieson, W. Peterson, R. Spjut, D.K. Smith, L. Stark, A. Whittemore), and associated with UC Berkeley, where he has an appointment as a Research Botanist (unpaid) in the University Herbarium. In addition to active progress towards completing his planned Bryophyte Flora of California, he conducts expeditions to threatened areas for collection of the full spectrum of plant groups, both in the western United States and internationally. He is participating in a large-scale floristic study of New Guinea, completing a series of papers in conjunction with T. Koponen (Bryophyte Flora of the Huon Peninsula, Papua New Guinea). D.G. Long has said of this series: "the format combines the floristic approach with a treatment which is essentially monographic" (Long, 1990).

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