2014 Mentors and Projects

Spatial variation in plant species range size and botanical collection effort. The size of the geographic distribution of a species, hereafter range size, is important in ecology and evolution for several reasons. In particular, patterns of variation in range size across species suggests that general mechanisms may underlay the relationships between the spatial distribution of organisms and body size, dispersal ability, abundance, and properties of the ecological niche. Range si...

Use-potential and conservation of tropical mountain forests in Peru and Bolivia: focus on Palm species in Bolivia. Palms (Arecaceae) are a large family of plants with about 2,500 species and are of economic importance to many countries and indigenous peoples of the tropics. They are found in the humid tropics and subtropics and are highly diverse in the Malesian and Neotropical regions but scarce in the African subcontinent. Palms are a major component of tropical ecosystems and...

Using population genetics to understand the relative contribution of selfed/outcrossed individuals to populations of a federally endangered plant species, Lewton's polygala (Polygala lewtonii). This project involves combining new genetic data with demographic data to answer questions about the reproductive biology of Polygala lewtonii, an endangered species endemic to Florida.

Project: Taxonomy of shrubby St. John’s wort in Missouri, a possible cryptic species complex. George Yatskievych is the director of the Flora of Missouri Project at MBG, overseeing the production and completion of a new three-volume book on all the species of Missouri. In addition, he does research on various fern groups and parasitic angiosperms. The common shrubby St. John’s wort in Missouri is a beautiful, yellow-flowered shrub that has begun to be used more frequently in n...

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