Home
Research
Research
Carnivory in Lamiales
In the angiosperm order Lamiales, the greatest diversity of carnivorous plants evolved, with some representatives exhibiting the most extreme embodiment of the carnivorous syndrome. The smallest an...
read more
DNA sequence alignment for phylogenetic analysis
We cooperate with Mark Simmons (Colorado State Universtiy, USA) on comparing alternative computerized alignment procedures via simulation studies and empirical data, and contrast these procedures...
read more
Eudicots
The eudicots comprise 75% of angiosperm species diversity. The eudicot clade is characterized by tricoplate and tricolpate-derived pollen (the "Tricolpate Clade"). Collaborative research aims at further...
read more
Evolution of epiphytism in Cactaceae
According to current knowledge, epiphytism has evolved at least twice in Cactaceae. A great number of morphological characters, including details of pollen morphology, has evolved in parallel in the...
read more
Gene family analyses
We currently analyze the complex evolutionary history of ITS paralogues and potential pseudogenes in Linderniaceae. We also cooperate with Claude dePamphilis (Penn State University, USA) on developing...
read more
German Barcode of Life
German Barcode of Life: Inventory and genetic characterization of animals, plants and fungi. GBOL is a German network consisting of several natural history museums and biodiversity research institutions...
read more
Indel evolution
With the growing number of phylogenetic studies that use length variable DNA sequences, incorporating information from length-mutational events into phylogenetic analysis is becoming increasingly i...
read more
Linderniaceae
Lamiales are one of the largest orders of angiosperms, with about 22000 species. The family Scrophulariaceae, as one of their most important families, has been shown to be polyphyletic. As a consequence, this family was r...
read more
Molecular systematics and pollen evolution in Amaranthaceae
Initiated and supervised by Prof. Thomas Borsch (FU Berlin), these studies aim at identifying the major lineages within Amaranthaceae and their affinities to Chenopodiaceae, as well as reconstructing pollen evolution in this...
read more
Parasitic plants
In cooperation with Claude dePamphilis (Penn State University, USA), we work on analysing selectional shifts on chloroplast genomes of parasitic plants. Parasitic plants are valuable models for studying gene and genome evolution in the absence of photosynthesis. Under relaxed functional constraints, the plastid...
read more
Phylogenetic signal in highly variable chloroplast DNA markers
Recent advances in understanding patterns and mechanisms of molecular evolution in coding and non-coding DNA regions have contributed to developing more sophisticated approaches to molecular phylogenetic...
read more
