www.reelab.net - plants, evolution, phylogenetics, biogeography

The Encyclopedia of Life is a major initiative to aggregate and organize information about all known species via the Internet.  I am actively involved in this effort in my role as Assistant Director of the EOL's Biodiversity Synthesis Center, located within the Field Museum.  The mission of BioSynC is to engage the scientific community by facilitating collaborative efforts to contribute to, and analyze, EOL content. 

An NSF-funded collaboration with Magnus Lidén to revise Corydalis (Fumariaceae), a species-rich (440 spp.) angiosperm clade that is most diverse in one of the few biodiversity “hotspots” on Earth that occur outside of the tropics: the mountains of south-central China.  The primary objectives are a revised sectional classification that incorporates molecular phylogenetic analyses in delimiting subgeneric taxa that are monophyletic, morphologically diagnosable, and stable and predictive in the face of

Pedicularis, a North Temperate/Arctic lineage of hemiparasites, is one of the great Sino-Himalayan radiations, with the vast majority of its 500+ species endemic to that region.  As might be expected, its systematics and taxonomy are somewhat challenging.  I am working on its molecular phylogeny, evolution of floral diversity, and geographic history.

See paper: Ree 2005

How have species ranges evolved through time?  I'm interested in developing biogeographic models that allow hypotheses about the past to be tested by integrating multiple lines of evidence, including phylogenetic trees, temporal change in dispersal opportunity and habitat availability, and fossils.

The mountains of south-central China are widely regarded as a global biodiversity hotspot.