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Camila Pizano | Lake Forest College
"Janzen-Connel effects in tropical dry forests; the interactive effects of drought and soil microbial communities on seedling growth"
Dr. Camila Pizano is a tropical plant ecologist and scientific illustrator from Colombia (South America). She has studied the interaction between plants and soil microorganisms (mainly mycorrhizae) in multiple tropical ecosystems, including lowland tropical rain forests, montane tropical forests, páramos, and tropical dry forests, as well as agricultural lands. She is also interested in broad ecological questions, such as how climate change will impact the floristic and functional composition of tropical forests, as well as belowground biodiversity. During the past ten years, her work has been focused mainly on understating the ecological dynamics and promoting the conservation of tropical dry forests, which are some of the most threatened ecosystems on the planet.
Surangi W Punyasena | University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
"Deep Learning in Deep Time: Discovering the Evolutionary Information in Pollen Morphology"
Dr. Surangi Punyasena investigates how climate shapes the composition and evolution of lowland Neotropical plant communities, utilizing fossil pollen records. Her research aims to revolutionize paleoecology by enhancing microfossil data and its resolution. Currently, she focuses on refining microscopy and computer automation techniques to improve pollen and spore count accuracy. She aims to expand paleoecological research possibilities by exploring microscopy methods, image analysis, machine learning, and transforming analysis workflows.
Liming Cai | University of Texas Austin
"The parasitic lifestyle shapes the genome, physiology, and body plan of plants"
Dr. Liming Cai is currently a Stengl Wyer postdoc at the University of Texas at Austin and will join the University of Florida as a faculty this fall. She received her PhD from Harvard University in plant systematics and studies parasitic plants via evolutionary and genetic perspectives.
Paul CaraDonna | Chicago Botanic Garden & Northwestern University
"Time, flexibility, and the meaning of plant-pollinator interactions"
Dr. Paul CaraDonna investigates the interplay among species interactions, population dynamics, and community patterns. He uses the mutualistic interactions among plants and pollinators as a model system to ask fundamental ecological questions about the importance of species interactions and to understand the ecological consequences of global change (e.g., climate change, biodiversity loss, pollinator declines, urbanization).
Dr. CaraDonna is also particularly interested in temporal ecology and the flexibility of species interactions. He addresses research questions using a variety of approaches including: observational field studies that leverage existing natural variation; field and laboratory experiments that build upon knowledge of this natural variation; analysis of long-term datasets and natural history collections; and quantitative tools like network analysis and simulation models.
Kathleen Kay | University of California, Santa Cruz
"How plants solve the problem of bees acting as both pollinators and pollen consumers"
Dr. Kathleen Kay's research centers on understanding diversification mechanisms of flowering plants, including adaptation and speciation. She studies natural plant populations, from both tropical and temperate systems, and would like to understand the ecological and geographical settings in which speciation occurs, the divergent adaptations and phenotypic changes that contribute to reproductive isolation, and the genetics underlying those adaptations. She is especially interested in plant adaptations to pollinators and to the edaphic environment, and the role those types of adaptations play in plant diversification at the population, species, and whole-flora levels. Her work combines field and greenhouse observations and experiments with insight from molecular genetics, microscopy, phylogenetic inference, and comparative biology.
Carolyn Wessinger | University of South Carolina
"Genetic features of parallel evolutionary shifts to hummingbird syndrome in Penstemon"
Dr. Carolyn Wessinger is interested in the causes and consequences of trait variation and evolution above and below the species level, using a genetic perspective. Her work combines a variety of approaches, including population genomics, QTL mapping, comparative studies, phylogenetics, and modeling approaches. She has focused on studying floral adaptation to different pollinators. She is interested in understanding the source of genetic variation for convergent evolution, population genetic processes that contribute to macroevolutionary trends, and how complex adaptations vary within populations and are maintained in the face of gene flow.
Dr. Nathan Muchhala | University of Missouri - St. Louis
"Actinomorphy to zygomorphy: Effects of floral symmetry on pollination, diversification, and abundance"
Dr. Nathan Muchhala conducts research in evolutionary ecology addressing the role of such interactions, especially mutualism and interspecific competition, in structuring communities and driving diversification. He focuses on plants pollinated by bats and hummingbirds, and integrates various approaches including molecular phylogenetics, mathematical modeling, and field experiments. His lab is interested in three specific questions: 1) What selective pressures favor specialization in pollination systems? 2) What are the evolutionary and ecological consequences of competition for pollination? 3) How do pollinators influence plant speciation?
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