Christy Edwards. Ph.D.
Associate Scientist, Conservation Genetics
Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development
Research Interests
• Conservation genetics
• Quantitative genetics
• Species-level molecular systematics
Wen-Hsi Kuo, Ph.D.
Postdoctoral Fellow in Conservation Genomics
Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development
Research Interests
• Evolutionary biology (local adaptation)
• Population genetics
Matthew Albrecht, Ph.D.
Director
Center for Conservation and Sustainable Development
Research Interests
• Conservation Biology
• Endangered Species Recovery
• Restoration and Reintroduction Ecology
Using genomic data to optimize ex situ collections of imperiled plants. Edwards is a population geneticist whose research includes studies of the genetic diversity of endangered species. 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. In this project, the student(s) will investigate patterns of genetic diversity and structure in an ex situ collection at the Missouri Botanical Garden. This project will involve analyzing whole-genome resequencing data generated from individuals in our living collection to understand how genetic diversity is structured within and among source populations and to identify loci showing signatures of local adaptation of environmental variation. The study will then use the information to help improve the efficiency of our living collection while maintaining as much genetic variation as possible. Our study species for the project include Neviusia alabamensis, Castanea ozarkensis, Quercus arkansana, Boltonia decurrens, Dalea foliosa, and Physaria globosa. The student(s) will work on one of the six species, which will be chosen based on their interests. The student(s) involvement in this project may lead to co-authorship in a related publication.