Director of the Herbarium and Senior Scientist in Plant Systematics
Trees can have a long life for research and outreach, even after they are no longer growing on the Arboretum’s grounds.
The team is calculating the conservation value, according to different goals, of four genera collections at The Morton Arboretum (lindens, crabapples, oaks, and elms) and developing plans to manage that value in the future.
Oak conservation depends on our understanding of what species exist and how they will evolve in response to climate change. Understanding evolutionary history and gene flow is thus key to understanding oak diversity.
Making plant biodiversity data widely available enables research and restoration of Midwestern landscapes and plant conservation efforts globally.
A collaborative group across China, Europe, and the United States is working on this project, using the extensive collection of woody plant species with notably rich coverage of diverse gymnosperm species that are currently underrepresented in previous global surveys.
Using evolutionary and functional diversity to plan ecological restoration projects can help to build restorations that establish more quickly, last longer, and require less maintenance.
Understanding evolutionary relationships and classification of Carex, one of the largest flowering plant groups of the northern hemisphere, is key to conservation, restoration, and ecological study in the group.
Living collections are important repositories of biodiversity. Understanding the history of domestication of the paperbark maple, which is endangered in its native habitat in China, can help us better conserve the species through targeted collection.
This project will develop a predictive, mechanistic framework to understand how taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional characteristics of plant communities influence soil microbial communities and the ecosystem functions that they drive.
