The Majure Lab has been studying the evolution of the prickly pears, or nopales, for many years now. This economically important and biologically fascinating group of plants has a distribution from Canada (as one of the northernmost genera in Cactaceae) down to Patagonia. Hybridization and whole genome duplication are major factors in this genus and have been principal areas of study.

While we have been able to build a relatively robust phylogeny of the diploid species of the group, we are still lacking the incorporation of polyploid species, as well as major parts of the distribution that have been poorly studied. We recently published the first genome of any Opuntia, which will help us develop future resources for understanding this group of amazing plants.