Here's the line-up from our group! Julia will share work showing that, throughout Solanaceae's history, the family's range evolved mostly due to dispersal events, especially from South America, as a result of early build-up of species richness in that area. Julienne will speak about patterns of plant community structure differing with phylogenetic scale, traits and sites. Rob will be speaking about his polyploid plant-pollinator research in creosote bush showing that native bees forage more on diploids and honeybees forage more on tetraploids in sympatry. Shelly will present a poster about her REU research on the influence of genome duplication on Brassicaceae and Roscaceae communities across the U.S, and Viviana will give a poster presentation about the influence of drought-adapted traits in influencing species co-occurrence within and across Fagaceae and Ericaceae communities. Also, Will will present a poster testing Darwin's naturalization hypothesis based on phylogenetic analyses of native and non-native species at seven National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) plots. Finally, Chelsea will be a mentor for the PLANTS program, which funds undergrads from around the country to attend the meeting. Gonna be a great time!
