Northwestern Events Calendar

Oct
23
2014

Plant Biology & Conservation Invited Speaker Seminar Series

When: Thursday, October 23, 2014
4:30 PM - 6:00 PM CT

Where: Pancoe-NSUHS Life Sciences Pavilion, Abbott Auditorium - First Floor, 2200 Campus Drive, Evanston, IL 60208 map it

Audience: Faculty/Staff - Student - Public - Post Docs/Docs - Graduate Students

Contact: Susan Black   (847) 467-1118

Group: Graduate Program in Plant Biology and Conservation

Category: Academic

Description:

Research on evolution of an Andean food crop to aid conservation of crop genetic diversity

Speaker: Eve Emshwiller, PhD,
Associate Professor of Botany,
University of Wisconsin - Madison

Abstract:

To face an uncertain future of climate change and possible new pests or diseases that may threaten food crops, availability of crop genetic diversity is crucial. To conserve that diversity, however, we need to understand how it evolved under human influence, and what wild species are most closely related to the crops in question. For global food security, we need to conserve the diversity not only of the most globally important crops, but of regionally important ones as well. My research on the Andean tuber crop oca (Oxalis tuberosa: Oxalidaceae) is aimed at providing information to guide conservation efforts to conserve diversity of this food crop and its wild relatives. Study of the origin of polyploidy and domestication in the crop in a phylogenetic framework is now helping to guide efforts to conserve diversity of wild species of Oxalis related to oca in Bolivia. Study of the distribution of oca clonal genotypes in the Peruvian Andes is intended to shed light on the networks of exchange of planting material among Andean subsistence farmers. Understanding the distribution and dynamics of both interspecific and intraspecific diversity of oca can provide an example for conservation of other crops’ agrobiodiversity as well.

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