Lily Lewis joined the Sticta project team and the postdoc team in the lab at least for the summer. Welcome (back).

Emily Behling has worked, under the supervision of Lily Lewis, for two years on the diaspores trapped in the feathers of migratory birds. She has co-authored the paper published in PeerJ, presented the work at the Evolution meeting last year and now earned the Connecticut Museum of Natural History Award for her work entitled: Migratory Birds Carry Plant Diaspores in their Feathers. Congratulations Emily.

Lily enthusiastically presented and  successfully defended her dissertation research: congratulations.

Antoine Simon, I forgot to announce, arrived in February and he seeking to gather sequences to resolve the diversity of Lobariaceae from Madagascar, as part of his MSc thesis at the University of Liège, where he competes his thesis under the supervision of Dr. Emmanüel Sérusiaux. Good luck.

Marta Alonso Garciá from the University of Murcia is arriving on Monday. She joins another visitor, Antoine Simon form the University of Liège in the lab. Marta will be working on next generation sequencing data obtained for exemplars of the Pottiaceae.

Lily Lewis is preparing for her defense of her dissertation entitled “Resolving Bipolar Phylogeographic Histories in the Common Dung Moss Tetraplodon (Bryopsida: Splachnaceae)” scheduled for April 22nd. Good luck and stay tuned!

Just released: Wang X.Y., B. Goffinet, D. Liu, J.W. Li, M.M. Liang, H.S. Shi, Y.Y. Zhang, J. Zhang & L.S. Wang. 2015. Taxonomic study of the genus Anzia (Lecanorales, lichenized Ascomycota) from Hengduan Mountains, China (7). The Lichenologist 47: 99–115.

Abstract: Analyses of morphological, anatomical, chemical and DNA sequences led to the recognition of ten species of Anzia in the Hengduan Mountains, which harbour all species known from China, including A. pseudocolpota sp. nov. and A. hypomelaena comb. & stat. nov. Furthermore, populations similar to A. hypoleucoides but with narrow lobes and a yellow-orange pigmented medulla may be a phylogenetically distinct species tentatively recognized as A. aff. hypoleucoides. The species are primarily distinguished by the presence or absence of a central axis, the colour and shape of the spongy cushion and the nature of the secondary compounds. A key to all known species of Anzia from China is presented.

Another video posted on Youtube that summarizes the event “Bryophytes in subantarctic Chile” (in Spanish).

Medina, R., Y. Liu, L-S Wang, S. Guo, K. Hylander & B. Goffinet. DNA-based geographic circumscription of Physcomitrella s. lat. species (Funariaceae): P. patens new to Asia and P. magdalenae new to Ethiopia. The Bryologist 118: 22–31. (DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1639/0007-2745-118.1.022

Lily Lewis and Adam Wilson (EEB alumnus) shared their experience from working on the Miniature Forests of subantarctic Chile with a journalist of the BBC who put together this article.