Systematics and Evolution of Heliconia (Heliconiaceae)

We have been working on developing an all-encompasing program on understanding the evolution of Heliconia for the past 3 years, in collaboration with Dr. W.John Kress at the Smithsonian Institution. Undergraduate Laura Lagomarsino has been involved in the project for two years and has contributed greatly to the generation of molecular data and the thorough analyses of these data to estimate phylogenetic hypotheses. Ultimately, we will use the molecular phylogeny to revise the genus Heliconia and to study the tempo and mode of speciation in these plants in a comparative framework with hummingbird pollinators and hispine beetle parasites. We are building a phylogeny using numerous chloroplast and nuclear markers.

For an update on this project, please refer to abstracts submitted to Botany 2008 (L.Lagomarsino et al.) and Monocots 2008 (W.J.Kress et al.). This research was recently recommended for funding by the National Science Foundation.