Why Are There So Many Flowering Plants?
15 May @ 7:30 pm – 9:00 pm
Why are there c.350,000 species of flowering plants? The staggering evolutionary rise of flowering plants dwarfs that of other lineages, such as mammals (c.6,400 species), and created the ecosystems we call home today. Flowering plant diversity has captured the minds of evolutionary biologists including Charles Darwin and continues to be a focus of research. By reconstructing the flowering plant family tree with DNA, we can understand the forces shaping their evolution. This talk will examine how DNA can reveal the importance of climate change and plant traits, as well as how flowering plants survived the K-Pg mass extinction that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs.
Dr Jamie Thompson studied for a BSc in Biological Sciences at the University of Reading, then an MRes and PhD in Evolutionary Biology at the University of Bath. He is now a lecturer at the University of Reading.
