Research interest:

  The mustard family (Brassicaceae sensu stricto or Cruciferae) includes about 340 genera and ca 3,350 species of worldwide distribution. A number of important crops, ornamentals, and the genetic model system Arabidopsis thaliana belong to this family which is easily recognized by its usually cruciform flowers, 4 long and 2 short stamens, often two valvate capsule divided into two chambers. These distinctive attributes and molecular data provide strong support to recognize Brassicaceae in a narrow sense as a natural group. Nevertheless, the intra-family classification has been a continued source of controversy, on of the most important reason of this disagreement is that such classifications were based on one or few morphological characters. Indeed, molecular studies reveal that Brassicaceae is fraught with taxonomic problems related to an under-developed understanding of character evolution and generic delimitations.

My research interest focuses in the systematics and evolution of one of the five recently advocated monophyletic clades within Brassicaceae. This small but extremely diverse clade includes seven odd genera in terms of pollen morphology. All members of this clade, present 4 to 10 apertures instead of the tricolpate basic type of the family. Within its range of distribution the polycolpate clade occupies a variety of habitats and soil types; and exhibits extensive variation in vegetative and reproductive morphological characters. Because of its tremendous morphological diversity and monophyletic origin the polycolpate clade constitutes an ideal model system for exploring patterns of diversification and character evolution within the Brassicaceae. I am interested in seeing the phylogenetic relationships within the genera of the polycolpate clade, by increasing the sampling of the taxa in the group used in earlier studies and using multiple DNA sequence data and provide a hypothetical basis to help to illuminate the evolutionary history of morphological and ecological traits of this group within the family.