Chelsea D. Specht, Graduate student in Botany and Evolutionary Biology


	Chelsea D. Specht New York University Graduate Program in Biology New York Botanical Garden Bronx, NY 10458 American Museum of Natural History Central Park West at 79th Street New York, NY 10024 chelsea@nybg.org (718) 817 8168 ~ Curriculum Vitae ~ Publications

Research: Systematics and Evolution of Costaceae

As a graduate student in biology at NYU with academic affiliations at the New York Botanical Garden and the American Museum of Natural History, I have the opportunity to take advantage of the strengths of these three institutions to develop an interdisciplinary program in plant evolutionary biology. The scope of my doctoral studies is evolutionary and systematic botany, and for my dissertation research I am focusing on the systematics and evolution of the tropical family Costaceae (Zingiberales).

The objective of my dissertation research is to develop an understanding of the evolutionary relationships of individual species and the genera they comprise within the family.

My research includes major two components:

developing a well-supported phylogeny for a comprehensive and representative sampling of taxa in the family Costaceae using molecular and morphological characters and
interpreting the implications of this phylogeny in terms of floral development, tropical biogeography, and the evolution of pollination syndromes.

The family Costaceae is one of the most easily recognizable groups within the order Zingiberales, distinguished from other families within the order by its well-developed aerial shoots that have a characteristic spiral staircase phyllotaxy. As presently circumscribed, the family is comprised of four genera: Costus L. (c. 70 spp.), Tapeinochilos Miq. (c. 18 spp.), Dimerocostus O. Kuntze (2 - 4 spp.) and the monotypic Monocostus K Schum. Most of the current understanding of the diversity within the family is restricted to revisionary studies and taxonomic treatments involving selective taxa with selective distributions. None of these revisions treat the family in its entirety, nor do they investigate potential phylogenetic relationships among the selected taxa studied. In addition, while the genera have been generally accepted as valid monophyletic groups, this hypothesis has neither been adequately supported nor challenged by any of the revisions nor by the more recent cladistic analyses of all Zingiberales (in which each Costaceae genus was represented by a single taxon).

For my dissertation research, I will determine the phylogenetic relationships of species within the family Costaceae via a cladistic analysis using both morphological and molecular data. A complete sampling of taxonomic diversity is required in order to test the validity of the four currently recognized genera and to determine the evolutionary relationships among species so that trends in character evolution and biogeographic diversity can be determined. The results of the phylogenetic analysis will be interpreted with respect to biogeography and trends in tropical forest diversification, evolution of floral and pollen development, and the evolution of pollination syndromes within the family.