Research Projects
Herbarium staff and students participate in diverse projects spanning traditional morphological plant systematics, floristics, plant anatomy, molecular analysis and pollination ecology. Our major focus areas include the plant families Orchidaceae, Ericaceae and Melastomataceae, Angiosperm family phylogeny, Florida floristic inventories and cultivated plant systematics.
Molecular, Morphological and Ecological Plant Systematic Studies
- Angiosperm Tree of Life Project : Resolving the trunk of the angiosperm tree and 12 of its thorniest branches
- Barcoding Florida Plants Project
- Molecular Systematics and Pollination Biology of Sobralieae (Orchidaceae)
- Molecular Systematics of Oncidiinae (Orchidaceae)
- Molecular Systematics of Asimina (Annonaceae)
- Orchid Tree: a phylogeny of epiphytes on the tree of life
- Phylogenetics of Maxillariinae (Orchidaceae)
- Phylogenetics of Pleurothallidinae: resolving generic limits in a large group of small orchids
- Phylogeny of Scaphosepalum (Orchidaceae)
- Phylogeny of the Melanthiaceae (Liliales)
- Pollination of Dracula (Orchidaceae)
- Laboratory of Molecular Systematics and Evolution (Soltis lab) (affiliated program)
Floristic Projects
- Cultivated Woody Plants of Florida : Checklist and Virtual Herbarium (USDA CRIS Project) (2012-2015)
- Dimensions US-China: Collaborative Research: How historical constraints, local adaptation, and species interactions shape biodiversity across an ancient floristic disjunction (Pamela Soltis, et al., NSF Award #1442280) UF Herbarium will process ca. 3000 vouchers for this project.
- Flora and DNA barcoding of the vascular plants of the Ordway-Swisher Biological Station (UF / Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, 2013-2015)
- Flora of Macaya National Park, Haiti is a Web site funded, in part, by a grant from Société Audubon Haïti (2015-2017). The site provides a working plant checklist, specimen data and images, and references, primarily based on the work in the region by University of Florida Herbarium, Florida Museum of Natural History, botanists and collaborators, and collections on deposit in the University of Florida Herbarium (FLAS).
- Floristic Inventory of Kanapaha Botanical Gardens
- Floristic Inventory of the University of Florida Campus
- Generic Flora of the Southeastern United States project
- Local Flora: Vascular Plants of North Central Florida
- Red List of Endemic Orchids of Ecuador
- Trees of the University of Florida - numerical and alphabetical lists of the numbered trees on campus.
Collection and Resource Digitization Projects
- Collaborative Research : BiSciCol Tracker: Towards a tagging and tracking infrastructure for biodiversity science collections (NSF Award #0956371)
- Digitizing Latin American and Other Type Specimens at the UF Herbarium: FLAS type specimen images and data for the Global Plants website (Mellon Foundation, 2011-2014)
- Digitization PEN: Digitization of North American Bryophyte and Lichen Specimens from Five Florida Herbaria (NSF Award #1206394, 2012-2015)
- Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: Digitization TCN: The Macroalgal Herbarium Consortium: Accessing 150 Years of Specimen Data to Understand Changes in the Marine/Aquatic Environment (NSF Award #1304924)
- Digitization TCN: Collaborative Research: The Key to the Cabinets: Building and Sustaining a Research Database for a Global Biodiversity Hotspot (NSF Award #1410288, 2014-2017)
- Revealing the Rare: a Virtual Collection of Florida's Endangered Plant Species (Florida Museum Associates)
Publications by Staff, Student and Affiliated Researchers (in herbarium library database)
Florida Museum Botanical Research Project Press Releases
- Florida Museum graduate student receives $13,500 NSF grant to study pitcher plants (13 June 2011)
- UF researchers help pinpoint key events in ancient plant evolution (10 April 2011)
- UF study names new genus of 125-million-year-old eudicot from China (30 March 2011)
- UF researcher: Flowering plant study 'catches evolution in the act' (17 March 2011)
- More Florida Museum of Natural History press releases
