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 Richard Ree, Ph.D.
Member, Pritzker Lab Management Committee
Department of Botany
Associate Curator, Flowering Plants
Richard Ree, Associate Curator in the Department of Botany, studies the evolution and diversification of flowering plants. More specifically, he works to understand how species are related to each other historically (their phylogeny), and also geographically—where do species occur and with whom? Studying species through time and space is essential for understanding their evolution.
For example, to discover whether biodiversity hotspot regions like the eastern Himalayas are "cradles" or "museums" of biodiversity—if species originate more often there, or if they immigrated from elsewhere—we need to know the geographic history of species living there.
Dr. Ree uses DNA sequences and other information to reconstruct this history for a group of plants called Pedicularis (louseworts), in which some species have unusual long-tubed flowers. The data help show how these species are related (their phylogeny), and where they evolved. It turns out that in Pedicularis, long-tubed flowers evolved not once, but many times.
 In addition, we also see the greatest diversity of Pedicularis in terms of both number of species, and morphological variation, in a relatively small region of southwestern China. This region also contains the most species of bumblebees, the primary pollinators of Pedicularis. His research helps reveal the connections between these observations.
Studying the phylogenetic relationships of Pedicularis and other plant taxa involves extracting and sequencing DNA from tissue samples and subjecting the collated data to intensive analysis. His research helps reveal theoretical predictions of evolutionary biology, such as trends in the gain and loss of traits through time and across branches of the Tree of Life.
To learn more, check out Dr. Ree’s Curriculum Vitae.
Continue to Erin Griffin Sackett-Hermann. >>
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