Submitted by Benjamin Blackman on
A major focus of our lab is identifying how genetic and phenotypic variation that has evolved among plant populations adapts plants to their local climates. Understanding how these adaptations to climate variation across space have evolved will help us understand mechanisms by which plants can evolve to cope with a changing climate over time and thus know what subsets of natural variation are most important to conservation efforts. We are studying the genetics of local adaptation in the common monkeyflower, Mimulus guttatus. In our work, we investigate not only how populations have evolved in response to long term climate trends but also how recent extreme drought events have caused evolutionary change.
In addition to studies of climate adaptation, we are also pursuing projects to examine how Mimulus guttatus populations have adapted to unique soil conditions (copper mine tailings and calcium-poor serpentine soils). This coming term we will be advancing transgenic experiments to test the roles that specific genes might play in helping populations that inhabit these soils thrive there as well as testing gene expression differences among populations.
The undergraduate researchers will grow, care for, and cross monkeyflowers as part of our efforts to scoring of germination, flowering, leaf shape, and other traits of plants under controlled conditions or in the greenhouse. They will collect tissue for DNA or RNA extraction and may also be involved with some combination of DNA isolation and genotyping. The student is encouraged to join weekly Blackman lab group meetings as well.
Students with strong interests in plant-environment interaction, genetics, evolution, and ecology will find the experience most rewarding. Attention to detail and good record keeping skills are essential. The student should be comfortable and enthusiastic about working in greenhouse and growth chamber conditions for extended periods, and they will be expected to follow guidelines for safely doing so.