2023 Botany Speaker Series

Junipers are a foundational woody plant across many arid and semi-arid landscapes of western North America. Pinyon-juniper woodlands cover millions of acres across the western United States, providing vital food and habitat resources for many arthropod, bird, and mammal species. Along the Sierra-Great Basin Ecotone, three juniper taxa come into contact and hybridize, forming a broad hybrid zone along the border of California and Nevada. To determine the ancestry of the hybrids, I generated a large population genetic data set (9,125 SNPs; 25 populations; 326 individuals) that spanned the hybrid zone and the geographic ranges of the three taxa. For these same individuals, my collaborators and I characterized phytochemical variation (163 terpenoid molecules) to understand how leaf chemistry varies across pure individuals and hybrids. I compare patterns of genetic, phytochemical, and environmental variation across the landscape to understand the evolutionary consequences and ecological drivers of hybridization in this system.

Kathryn Uckele is a postdoctoral scholar in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at the University of California, Santa Cruz, where she studies the evolution and diversification of the tropical spiral gingers (Costus). In 2022, she received her PhD in Ecology, Evolution, and Conservation Biology from the University of Nevada, Reno, where much of her research focused on understanding the genomic and phenotypic consequences of hybridization among three juniper taxa.