Christy Edwards. Ph.D.
Associate Scientist, Conservation Genetics
Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development
Research Interests
• Conservation genetics
• Quantitative genetics
• Species-level molecular systematics
Iván Jiménez, Ph.D.
Scientist
Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development
Research Interests
• Species concepts and delimitations
• Spatial patterns of species diversity and distributions
• Ecological computer modeling
Matthew Albrecht, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development
Research Interests
• Conservation Biology
• Endangered Species Recovery
• Restoration and Reintroduction Ecology
Rebecca Sucher
Senior Manager, Living Collections
Horticulture Division
Research Interests
• Ex-situ plant conservation
Georgia Thomas
Plant Records Data Specialist
Horticulture Division
Research Interests
• Ex-situ plant conservation
Investigating the role of adaptive phenotypic variation in ex-situ conservation programs. Edwards is a population geneticist whose research includes studies of the genetic diversity of endangered species. Albrecht is the Director of MBG’s Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development; his research interests include ex situ and in situ conservation, conservation genetics, and seed germination ecology. Jiménez is an Associate Scientist in the Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development; his research program seeks to determine the factors that determine the abundance and distribution of species at various spatial scales. Sucher is MBG’s Senior Manager of Living Collections in the Horticulture Division; her research interests include the ex-situ conservation of rare and endangered plants. Thomas is a Plant Records Data Specialist in the Horticulture Division also interested in ex-situ conservation of rare and endangered plants. Ex situ species conservation is the maintenance of populations of species outside their native habitat in intensively managed living collections. For plants, botanical gardens (broadly defined to include arboreta, seed banks and other institutions maintaining documented collections of living plants) are the institutions principally in charge of ex situ conservation programs. The role of ex situ plant conservation is to safeguard against extinction, sheltering a representative sample of the diversity present in a species from the threats experienced by wild populations, and to provide plant material for reintroductions, population augmentations, restoration, and related practices. Therefore, an important concern for botanical garden staff tasked with managing living plant collections for ex situ species conservation is the extent to which these collections represent the intraspecific variation present in a species, both so that it is protected from loss and so that it preserves important diversity for future conservation efforts. This project uses a common garden experiment to test for adaptive phenotypic variation across the geographic range of a species of particular interest for the ex situ conservation program of the Missouri Botanical Garden. This project will involve collecting measurements of a range of phenotypic and phenological traits from the species sampled from throughout its geographic range, data analysis to understand how the species varies phenotypically throughout its range, and analysis of the association between variation in phenotypic traits and climate. The results will help understand whether the species shows evidence of local adaptation across its range, which may have important implications for its conservation.