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Katie Wenzell

@kewenzell.bsky.social

Plant evolutionary ecologist. Asst Prof of Plant Conservation & Herbarium Director at South Dakota State U. Looks at flowers, professionally. Views my own. she/her kewenzell.com

6 Posts142 Follower171 Folgt
Matt Koski@mattkoski.bsky.social · 5d ago

A little annual Phacelia recently expanded from granite outcrops to roadsides in the SE US. We explored how flower color evolved following the habitat expansion and if shifts in the generalist pollinator assemblage might shape color variation. onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

The Most Effective Pollinators Predict Intraspecific Floral Color Diversity Across an Edaphic Matrix

A generalist-pollinated plant endemic to rock outcrops recently expanded to weedy roadside meadow populations where it exhibited reduced flower color variation and less pigmented flowers. A relations...

onlinelibrary.wiley.com

Megan Smith@snaildit.bsky.social · 6d ago

My lab is hiring a postdoc for an NSF-funded project on machine learning, model misspecification, and population genetics! Flexible start-date! Learn more about the lab: smithlabbio.github.io Job Ad: explore.msujobs.msstate.edu/cw/en-us/job... Please reach out if you have any questions!

The Smith Lab — Mississippi State University

The Smith Lab at Mississippi State University studies diversification using genomic data, with a focus on terrestrial snails and slugs.

smithlabbio.github.io

Joe Walker@evojfwalker.bsky.social · 4mo ago

RNA from herbarium samples is more stable than previously thought and can be extracted for different uses genome.cshlp.org/content/earl.... Study led by @atyszka.org and in collaboration with @philcarella.bsky.social @khongsamchia.bsky.social @phylonatworks.bsky.social @sciencedrew.bsky.social

Herbaria provide a valuable resource for obtaining informative mRNA

Although DNA has built the framework for molecular insights from museum collections, the utility of archival RNA remains largely unexplored. Likely a consequence of the known instability of RNA relative to DNA, this has effectively precluded the use of herbaria for transcriptomics. Here, we challenge the assumption that herbaria cannot be used for transcriptomics by assembling transcriptomes from RNA extracted from herbarium specimens. Through systematic comparison of transcriptomes from fresh-collected, silica-dried, and archival specimens, we demonstrate the suitability of herbarium-derived RNA for transcriptomics. We show the practical applicability of archival mRNA by functionally validating a plant immune receptor synthesized from a specimen collected in 1956. These results contradict the community consensus regarding archival RNA and open the door to subsequent transcriptomic explorations of rare and extinct plant species. Our findings highlight the importance of preserving and utilizing the diversity embedded within herbarium collections.

genome.cshlp.org

Katie Wenzell@kewenzell.bsky.social · 5mo ago

Y'ALL I am HONORED to share that Isabel Dalton, inaugural member of my lab group, has been awarded the NSF GRFP! She is so deserving of this award, and I could not be happier for her. Needless to say, we are both thrilled.🪻🐝

A pollinator ecologist smiling and holding an insect net, surrounded by wildflowers in a tall grass prairie.
The Guardian@theguardian.com · 6mo ago

Cambridge offers botany course that inspired Darwin after rare archive uncovered

Cambridge offers botany course that inspired Darwin after rare archive uncovered

University’s botanic garden will use study materials created by John Stevens Henslow, the naturalist’s mentor, 200 years ago Plant specimens and teaching materials that inspired Charles Darwin and qualified him to work as a naturalist on HMS Beagle have been unearthed from an archive in Cambridge and will be used for the first time to teach contemporary students about botany. The fragile specimens, ink drawings and watercolour illustrations of plants belonged to Darwin’s teacher and mentor, Prof John Stevens Henslow, and have been stored in Cambridge University’s herbarium for nearly 200 years. Continue reading...

theguardian.com

Jenn Coughlan@jenncoughlan.bsky.social · 7mo ago

I am SO THRILLED to share our first fully-lab lab paper!!!!!! Led by @hybridzones.bsky.social & @hagarsoliman.bsky.social, w/ a major assist from @pfschwarz.bsky.social!!!!!!!!!!!!! Read more below, if you're curious (you should be- it's AWESOME!!!!!!!) link: www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

Introgression and parental conflict shape repeated occurrences of postzygotic isolation in Mimulus

Postzygotic reproductive isolation is often thought to accumulate as a byproduct of neutral divergence. Yet it frequently evolves rapidly, in line wit…

sciencedirect.com

Stacey D. Smith@iochromaland.bsky.social · 10mo ago

This story has been such a long time coming! We found that the family of MYB transcription factors that makes pink tomatoes has a wacky cousin involved in the evolution of red flowers in Iochroma. #MYBs4Ever

Genetics Society of America@genetics-gsa.bsky.social · 10mo ago

In #G3journal, @iochromaland.bsky.social and the team present a new genetic pathway in flower color evolution and investigate how this mechanism operates within the flavonoid pathway, which is critical for pigment production in flowers and fruits. buff.ly/7sithlg