2019 Mentors and Projects

Assistant Scientist – Education Coordinator
Research Department, Science & Conservation Division

Research Interests
• Anthurium (Araceae) systematics and evolution
• Plant species diversity and geographic distribution in tropical regions
• Phylogenomics of rapid radiations of species

Web Pages:
MBG
The Genus Anthurium 

A revision of Anthurium section Dactylophyllium in tropical America using morphology and genomics. Carlsen-Krause, the REU Co-PI in this proposal, is an assistant scientist and the education coordinator of MBG’s Research Department. She is also one of the specialists in the Araceae family at MBG. Her research focuses in understanding the rapid radiation of the species-rich (ca. 1,000 species) Neotropical genus Anthurium (“flamingo” or “wax flower”), integrating revisionary taxonomical studies and molecular phylogenomics. Anthurium species with palmately divided leaves represent a very distinct morphological group within the genus. A recent molecular phylogeny (Carlsen and Croat 2013) has shown that most of these species (24 in total) belong to a single highly supported clade. Even though the group was recently re-delimited to match the findings in this molecular study (Croat & Carlsen 2013), an exhaustive taxonomic treatment of the bulk of the species that belong to section Dactylophyllium is still very much needed. At least 5 potentially new and undescribed species are found in this group as well as 2 hard to delimit species complexes. The main objective of this project is to perform a detailed taxonomic study of the species included in Anthurium section Dactylophyllium. The student will be involved in the following activities: sorting out specimens of Anthurium section Dactylophyllium using herbarium (dried) and living collections, describing basic morphological features of the species, using Lucid interactive key technology to compare and identify species, and analyzing whole chloroplast genomes to describe inter-specific relationships. The student will assist in the preparation of a manuscript and be co-author for a publication based on the results of this project.