Mónica Carlsen, Ph.D.
Scientist 2 – Education Program Manager
Latin America Department
Research Interests
• Plant species diversity and geographic distribution in tropical regions
• Phylogenomics of rapid radiations of species
• Systematics and evolution of Anthurium (Araceae)
Floral scent differentiation in the genus Anthurium (Araceae). Carlsen, the current REU program co-PI, is a Scientist 2 and the Education Program Manager of MBG’s Science and Conservation Division. Her research focuses on understanding the diversification of the Neotropical plants. The extraordinary diversity of floral traits in angiosperms is often attributed to pollinator-mediated selection. The highly diverse Neotropical genus Anthurium, with approximately 950 species, presents an ideal system to investigate how the relationship between floral scents and pollinator preferences influences reproductive isolation, species coexistence at local scales, and ultimately, diversification patterns at broader evolutionary scales. In Anthurium, where morphological and phenological barriers to pollinator discrimination are minimal, floral scent divergence may be crucial for mediating pollination specificity and species coexistence. In this project, the student will collect floral scent samples from intact inflorescences from living plants in the MBG research greenhouses, targeting plants when strongly scented to the human nose. Other characteristics helpful in species differentiation by their pollinators will also be recorded, such as inflorescence color, dimensions and time of flowering. Trapped scent samples will be analyzed using gas chromatography and mass spectrometry (GC-MS). The student will then analyze the mass spectrometry results and identify the volatile organic compounds (VOCs) present in the samples through comparison to published databases, libraries, and authentic reference standards. The student will calculate dissimilarity indices to quantify overall differences between species pairs in floral scent VOCs and other floral characteristics and use non-metric multidimensional scaling to visualize the results. The student's involvement in this project may lead to co-authorship in a related publication.