From Plant Press, Vol. 27, No. 2, April 2024.
Karina Alves, a 2023 Cuatrecasas Travel awardee, conducted research in the U.S. National Herbarium in March 2024. She is a Brazilian PhD student in Botany at the Postgraduate Program of Biological Sciences - Tropical Botany, of the Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi and the Universidade Federal Rural da Amazônia in Pará, Brazil. Her thesis is focused on the Systematics and Evolution of Rhynchospora section Pauciflorae Kük. (Cyperaceae), a misunderstood group of sedges, unrevised since its creation in 1949, and enigmatic even among the Cyperaceae specialists. The U.S. National Herbarium houses a large collection made by the Flora of the Guianas project, one of the diversity centers for the species of section Pauciflorae, and the contributions of Mark Strong, one of the world's leading Rhynchospora scholars. The U.S. herbarium also has important collections from Australia and Asia, including types, where some species of the focused section occur. During her visit, Alves could consult ca. 400 specimens, describe new species, consult important type specimens for the group, and collect samples of leaf tissue for DNA extraction to perform with the phylogeny, especially from the Australasian specimens, that are not available for her research in Brazil. The studies will contribute to the comprehension of the diversity of section Pauciflorae, its evolutionary history, and the relationships with the other sections of Rhynchospora, one of the largest genera of Cyperaceae, with high diversity levels in the Neotropics.
Ian Medeiros joined the Department of Botany as a Peter Buck Postdoctoral Fellow in February 2024. He is working under the supervision of Eric Schuettpelz to investigate species boundaries in southern African Xanthoparmelia, the most speciose genus of lichen-forming fungi in the Greater Cape Floristic Region. Medeiros recently completed his PhD at Duke University under the supervision of François Lutzoni, which included work on the systematics of the fungal classes Lecanoromycetes and Eurotiomycetes and the green algal genus Trebouxia. He is broadly interested in the systematics, genomics, ecology, and biogeography of ascomycete fungi involved in symbioses with photosynthetic organisms—primarily lichens, but also fungal endophytes and bryophilous (moss- and liverwort-inhabiting) fungi.
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