Plant Diversity & Evolution
Roger Fryer photo
We study the evolution of plants, their traits, and of specific functional genes. Our current projects focus on two plant clades, the showy mistletoes and the cycads, and one photoreceptor gene family, the phytochromes.
See what we’ve been up to!
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Australasian Showy Mistletoes
Lots of fun questions here! Why do some mistletoes look so much like their hosts? How has the evolution of mistletoe diversity been shaped by interactions with their hosts, nectar-feeding birds, specialist butterflies, and their avian dispersers? *Roger Fryer photo
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Cycad phylogenetics with fossils
Many challenges remain in the effort to reconstruct the evolutionary history of cycads. Fossils are key pieces of the puzzle.
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Phytochrome evolution
Seedlings of the conifer, larch (Larix laricina), grown in continuous white light, dark, far-red, or red light, showing that seedling light responses in some conifers are like those of a flowering plant seedlings. *Donna Tremonte photos
