How can we identify plants?
Plants are essential for many aspects of our daily lives as they provide food, medicines, and construction materials. However, plants can also cause harm, think of poisonous plants, pollen allergies, adulterants in herbal medicines, or invasive species. Correct identification of plants is therefore crucial but unfortunately this is often problematic. Plant.ID will address this issue by developing state-of-the-art molecular solutions for a simplified way of identifying plants.
Latest news
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Plant.ID at Botany 2020
Aug. 3, 2020
Yannick Woudstra and Anne-Sophie Quatela both gave presentations this year at Botany 2020. Anne-Sophie gave a presentation on the results from her pilot study on targeted long read sequencing using herbarium specimens, and Yannick gave a presentation on his first batch of phylogenomic data for the aloes, including a preliminary phylogeny of approximately 200 taxa that show it is possible to obtain reasonable separation between closely related aloes. Both Yannick and Anne-Sophie received interesting questions and compliments. Many congratulations to the both of them!
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Congrats to Mari for her successful MSc Defense!
June 3, 2020
Today Mari Elizabeth Engelstad, the MSc student of María, successfully defended her MSc Thesis, 'Determining Nature Types in Norway by Soil eDNA Metabarcoding'. So many congrats to a job well done!
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Nataly interviewed for BBC article on the cinchona tree and its history in human health
May 29, 2020
Congrats to Nataly Canales for her recent interview in BBC News on the cinchona tree and its historical use in human health. Quinine can be extracted from the bark of the cinchona tree, and for centuries was the primary treatment for malaria. The cinchona tree, which is native to the Andes, is presently endangered. Nataly explains in her article the importance of protecting the cinchona tree and 'the pharmacy of the world that nurtures it' as an incredible resource for future drug discoveries.
Research output
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Exploring the utility and limits of target enrichment methods to study polyploidy and reticulate evolution
Quatela, Anne-Sophie. Exploring the utility and limits of target enrichment methods to study polyploidy and reticulate evolution
At: Botany 2020 (virtual). Organized by The Botanical Society of America. 27-31 July 2020.
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Molecular identification and phylogenomic resolution of Aloe vera and relatives using customised nuclear target enrichment.
Woudstra Y, 29 July 2020. Molecular identification and phylogenomic resolution of Aloe vera and relatives using customised nuclear target enrichment.
At: Botany 2020 Virtual. Organized by the Botanical Society of America. 27-31 July 2020.
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GGBC Taxonomy club: Aloes (Asphodelaceae-subfamily Alooideae
Woudstra, Y., 28 February 2020. GGBC Taxonomy club: Ales (Aslphodelaceae - subfamily Alooideae.
At: Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, UK. 28 February 2020.
