Research Interests

Work in Barbara Schaal's lab focuses on the evolutionary genetics of plants, often in collaboration with staff and students of the Missouri Botanical Garden. Research projects span the range from molecular evolution of genetics, systematics, and quantitative genetics. Schaal studies plant species native to the U.S., tropical crops and their wild relatives, and Arabidopsis.

Photo caption: G3pdh gene tree from cassava and its wild progenitor, Manihot esculenta subsp. flabellifolia.

Selected Publications

Ge, X. J., M. H. Liu, W.K. Wang, B.A. Schaal, and T.Y. Chiang (2005) Population structure of wild bananas, Musa balbisiana, in China determined by SSR fingerprinting and cpDNA PCR-RFLP. Molecular Ecology 14:933-944.

Caicedo, A. and B. Schaal. (2005) Heterogeneous evolutionary processes affect R gene diversity in natural plant populations of Solanum pimpinellifolium. PNAS 101:17444-17449.

Schaal, B. and W. J. Leverich. (2005) Conservation Genetics: Theory and Practice. Ann. Mo. Bot. Garden 92: 1-11.

Miller, A. and B. Schaal. (2005) Domestication of a Mesoamerican cultivated fruit tree, Spondias purpurea. PNAS 102:12801-12806.

Chung, K-f, C-I Peng, S. Downie, K. Spalik, and B. Schaal. (2005) Molecular systematics of the trans-Pacific alpine genus Oreomyrrhis (Apiaceae): phylogenetic affinities and biogeographic implications. Amer. J. Bot. 92: 2054-2071.

Schaal, B. K. Olsen, L. Carvalho. (2006) Evolution, Domestication, and Agrobiodiversity in the tropical crop cassava. In Darwin’s Harvest, T. Motley, N. Zerega and H. Cross, editors, Columbia U. Press, pp 269-284.

Beck, J., I. Al-Shebaz and B. Schaal. (2006) Leavenworthia (Brassicaceae) revisited: Testing classic systematic and mating system hypotheses. Systematic Botany 31: 149-157.

Londo, J. Y-C Chiang, K-H Hung, T-Y Chiang, and B. Schaal. (2006) Phylogeography of Asian wild rice, Oryza rufipogon reveals multiple independent domestications of cultivated rice, Oryza sativa Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 103: 9578-9583.