With the use of modern DNA sequencing and phylogenetic reconstruction methods, I aim to better understand the evolution of key traits that have shaped current-day biodiversity. My work at Naturalis Biodiversity Center focuses on understanding the environmental drivers of repeated independent transitions from herbaceousness towards derived woodiness on continents and islands.
Keywords
Evolution of woodiness, biogeography, derived woodiness, Brassicaceae, Canary Islands, next generation sequencing, phylogenetics
Currenttopics
A selection of the ongoing research at Naturalis that I am associated with:
Exploring massive parallel evolution and diversification of derived woodiness in the Brassicaceae
I study the evolutionary aspects of derived woodiness in the mustard family Brassicaceae. The best-known member of the mustard family is Arabidopsis thaliana, a tiny non-woody species which is used as a model system in many molecular experiments. But the…
Rampant evolutionary transitions towards the woody growth form
Why did plants become woody? I am fascinated to understand the climatic and genetic drivers of wood formation that has occurred hundreds of times during evolutionary history.