Undergraduate Research & Scholarships

Lynn Gu

Phylogenetics of Pacific Coast Irises

Pacific coast irises are native to California, Oregon and part of Washington, and they are often found in small, isolated populations. Preliminary analyses of their phylogeny have shown that the relationship between populations do not necessarily coincide with relationship between species. I am researching how populations of pacific coast irises relate to each other by constructing maximum-likelihood/Bayesian phylogenetic trees and using statistical methods to further analyze the credibility of these trees.

 

Message To Sponsor

I'm grateful to my donor for funding this research. I've always been interested in evolution because I want to know how living organisms evolved to be the way they are. I'm excited to explore how researchers investigate evolution in actual life settings.