RESEARCH OVERVIEW
I use the popular vegetable crop garden asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) and its wild relatives to study how separate sexes and sex chromosomes evolve in plants.
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There are around 215 total species of Asparagus, and at least 53 of them have evolved separate sexes, including garden asparagus.
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My research aims to untangle how/when separate sexes and sex chromosomes originally evolved in the genus Asparagus.
I use our current understanding of species relationships within the genus Asparagus to study how sex chromosomes have changed across evolutionary time.
To do this, I analyze DNA sequences that are found on sex chromosomes and compare them between closely related species of Asparagus.
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Findings from my research will help us better understand how sex chromosomes originally evolve and change overtime in plants!
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Example of separate sexed flowers in wild species of Asparagus:
Photo of me collecting Asparagus oligoclonos for DNA sampling at JC Raulston Arboretum (NC State, North Carolina).
Asparagus maritimus
Asparagus schoberioides
Flower images from: Kanno, Akira, and Jun Yokoyama. 2011. 'Asparagus.' in, Wild Crop Relatives: Genomic and Breeding Resources (Springer). DOI 10.1007/978-3-642-20450-0_3