our workWe have a number of ongoing projects focused on rare plant population genetics. Our goal is to use genetic tools to address big picture questions like what is a population? and how do we best manage for species recovery? To learn more about active projects in our lab, check out the stories below.
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clonal plant conservation genetics
We are working on several plant species that can reproduce both sexually by seed and asexually by rhizomes (underground horizontal stems) or stolons (above ground horizontal stems). What is the significance of clonal reproduction? It results in genetically identical individuals on the landscape. These individuals begin as shoots connected by rhizomes, but each shoot has its own root system. As the rhizomes disintegrate over time, the individual shoots (called ramets) can continue to live independently of the original mother plant. If we are interested in monitoring numbers of individual plants within populations over time, which is often an important metric for rare species recovery, how do we define an individual in a clonal species? This is a question we are investigating in several rare plant systems. Read more about it below.
Sagittaria fasciculata (Alismataceae), commonly known as bunched arrowhead, is a federally endangered, semi-aquatic plant found in only two counties worldwide (Greenville County, SC, and Henderson County, NC). This species needs very specific, slow moving aquatic habitats that are threatened by human development. We know that it can reproduces through rhizomes, but we do not know how dependent this species may be on clonality. As described above, this can have significant implications for conservation efforts.
Our team is using a genetic approach to assess clonality within and among populations of this species. So far, we have sampled 15 different locations across the species range. At each location, we target up to 24 ramets in a systematic way, mapping as we go. This will allow us to visualize the distributions of clonal genotypes within and among populations. We are developing up to 40 nuclear microsatellite loci for this species, with plans to use a genotype-by-sequencing (GBS) approach to obtain a high-resolution genetic data set. So far, we have generated traditional fragment-based data for five polymorphic loci across nine sites in five different drainages. Our results indicate that clonality plays a significant role in structuring bunched arrowhead populations. In fact, some locations appear to exist as a single genetic individual or clone. We hope to have the GBS data set for all of our sampled locations completely analyzed by Summer 2023, giving us the clearest picture yet of what is happening in this system.
Our team is using a genetic approach to assess clonality within and among populations of this species. So far, we have sampled 15 different locations across the species range. At each location, we target up to 24 ramets in a systematic way, mapping as we go. This will allow us to visualize the distributions of clonal genotypes within and among populations. We are developing up to 40 nuclear microsatellite loci for this species, with plans to use a genotype-by-sequencing (GBS) approach to obtain a high-resolution genetic data set. So far, we have generated traditional fragment-based data for five polymorphic loci across nine sites in five different drainages. Our results indicate that clonality plays a significant role in structuring bunched arrowhead populations. In fact, some locations appear to exist as a single genetic individual or clone. We hope to have the GBS data set for all of our sampled locations completely analyzed by Summer 2023, giving us the clearest picture yet of what is happening in this system.