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Research Interests
I am studying the genus Grindelia in the
tribe Astereae of the Asteraceae. It has yellow ray and
disc flowers and resinous involucres that give it the common
name of gumweed. Grindelia is native to open habitats
throughout western North America, Mexico, and southwestern
South America. Members of the genus grow in a
wide variety of habitats and many different soil types including
salt marshes, coastal dunes, serpentine soils, dry roadsides, and open pine
woodlands. In addition to this diversity of habitats, Grindelia shows a wide range of
morphologies from sub-shrubs and upright, much-branched perennials to plants with
unbranched stems growing from a basal rosette and prostrate forms. However, all of
these forms are connected by intermediates and it is not clear how much gene exchange
there is and how much of the variation is phenotypic. I am currently examining
the phylogeny of the genus using gene sequence data. In the future I hope to
examine the morphological variation in western North American species more closely
using common garden experiments and investigate gene flow among the populations
growing in different habitats using population genetics approaches.
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