Sally Chambers

Marie Selby Botanical Gardens · Botany

All green plants alternate between the gametophyte and sporophyte life stages, but only seed‐free vascular plants (ferns and lycophytes) have independent, free‐living gametophytes. Fern and lycophyte gametophytes are significantly reduced in size and morphological complexity relative to their sporophytic counterparts and have often been overlooked...

Ferns and lycophytes are unique among land plants in having sporophyte (diploid) and gametophyte (haploid) generations that can grow independently of each other. While most studies of fern ecology focus on the more visible sporophytic stage, the gametophyte is critically important, as it is the sexual phase of the life cycle. Yet, fern gametophytes...

Demographic trends can be used to understand population status and the potential for future success. For rare species, studying demographic patterns of extant populations is critical for conservation management and species assessment. Harrisia aboriginum Small ex Britton & Rose, commonly known as the aboriginal prickly-apple cactus, is a columnar c...

Ferns and lycophytes are unique among land plants for having sporophyte (diploid) and gametophyte (haploid) generations that can grow independently of each other. While most studies of fern ecology focus on the more obvious sporophytic stage, the gametophyte is critically important, as it is the sexual phase of the life cycle. Yet, fern gametophyte...

In this article, the authors review the current and historic extent of the federally endangered Harrisia aboriginum, a cactus endemic to southwest Florida. The plant was first described to science as a species in the early 1900s, but is thought to have been known to the indigenous people of Florida in pre-Columbian times. Past and present surveys h...

https://deepblue.lib.umich.edu/bitstream/2027.42/154416/2/ajb21437_am.pdf

Proper hypothesis generation, data handling, graphing, and communication are essential skills that undergraduate majors in biology are expected to master. However, students rarely get hands-on practice that helps them to effectively develop these skills. The purpose of this lesson is to provide students with the opportunity to practice scientific t...

Reticulate evolution, in which phylogenetic relationships are not strictly bifurcating (tree-like), is a common feature of fern evolution. Ferns are prone to hybridization and whole genome duplication, two processes that can make untangling phylogenetic relationships among species challenging. Next-generation sequencing technologies have greatly in...

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/aobpla/plx013.][This corrects the article DOI: 10.1093/aobpla/plx013.].

Species-level responses to environmental change depend on the collective responses of their constituent populations and the degree to which populations are specialized to local conditions. Manipulative experiments in common-garden settings make it possible to test for population variation in species’ responses to specific climate variables, includi...

Asplenium L. is estimated to be the largest fern genus and is very prone to polyploidy and hybridization. We investigated the phylogenetic relationships of two geographically restricted complexes in the Mediterranean Basin, and searched for evidence of multiple and/or reciprocal origins of the allopolyploids. The A. obovatum Viv. and A. adiantum-ni...

Premise of the study: Many ecological and evolutionary processes shape the assembly of organisms into local communities from a regional pool of species. We analyzed phylogenetic and functional diversity to understand community assembly of the ferns of Florida at two spatial scales. Methods: We built a phylogeny for 125 of the 141 species of fern...

We report on the occurrence of independent gametophytes of Didymoglossum petersii and both gametophytes and sporophytes of Vittaria graminifolia in the Broxton Rocks Preserve of southern Georgia. This is the first time sporophytes of V. graminifolia have been observed in the United States. In order to unambiguously identify both taxa, we extracted...

Selective pressures acting on plant life histories can drive extreme specialization. One example of such specialization is the evolution of dioecious breeding systems. Evolutionary and ecological theory posits that dioecy may subject male and female individuals to different selective pressures and result in unique sex-mediated adaptive traits relat...

Premise of the study: Our goal was to infer the phylogenetic relationships and historical biogeography of the genus Dryopteris with a focus on taxa in sub-Saharan Africa and neighboring islands. In general, little is known about the relationships between African fern species and their congeners in other geographic regions, and our aim was to deter...

Premise of research. Ferns (monilophytes) and lycophytes are unique among land plants in having two independent life stages: the gametophyte generation, which is generally small, cordiform, and short-lived, senescing after fertilization, and the sporophyte generation, which is considered the dominant, long-lived portion of the life cycle produced f...

Premise of the study: Theory predicts that limited gene flow between populations will promote population differentiation, and experimental studies have found that differentiation is often explained by local adaptation in sexually reproducing angiosperms. However, few experiments have examined the drivers of differentiation among populations in ase...

AimA species’ distribution reflects its ecological niche when all of the habitats that support population growth are occupied. However, organisms with limited dispersal potential may not colonize all suitable habitats and may consist of differentially adapted populations that have different niche requirements. Here, we evaluate the factors determin...

Background/Question/Methods Our goal was to promote the adoption of active learning strategies for experimental design and statistical analysis in the undergraduate classrooms in life sciences. We participated in a Faculty Learning Community (FLC) supported by a Howard Hughes Medical Institute Undergraduate Education award at Purdue University. F...