Phylogenetic methods for evolutionary mechanisms
Plants are amazing survival artists capable of enduring harsh environments and thriving in newly opened niches. My research seeks to broadly understand how environmental changes and biological interactions re-model the genealogical histories across the plant’s genome, with the aim of identifying key innovations responsible for adaptive changes. At the macroevolutionary scale, I will demonstrate how whole genome duplications buffered plants through a historical global warming, and how ancient gene flows created hyperdiverse clades in the neotropics and Chinese Hengduan Mountains.