Experiments

THE CISTANTHE PROJECT

Participants: Erika Edwards (Yale), Lilian Hancock (Biologics), Klaus Winter (STRI) and Joe Holtum (JCU).

Project: Cistanthe, a genus within the family Montiaceae (Caryophyllales), are distributed in drier regions between southern USA and Chile. The genus is particularly speciose in the deserts of Chile. Between us, we are studying the evolutionary biology and the expression of CAM within the genus.

Progress: CAM photosynthesis has been demonstrated (see publications page), plant collection has been undertaken across the range of Cistanthe (see Atacama Expedition in Expeditions page) and exploration of the evolutionary biology of Cistanthe is underway at Yale.