BotanyLaymon Ball
2021 The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Tropical Botany
Mutualisms, Mountains, and Machine Learning: Disentangling Drivers of Evolution in a Florally Diverse Neotropical Plant Clade, Hillieae (Rubiaceae)
Ball will use a combination of fieldwork, machine learning, and phylogenetic comparative methods to disentangle abiotic and biotic drivers of evolution in an understudied group of Neotropical flowering epiphytes, Hillieae (Rubiaceae). While it is a relatively small group of only 29 species, Hillieae displays incredible floral diversity. Species fall into three pollination syndromes: bat, hawk moth, and hummingbird. As part of her research, Laymon will travel to Monteverde, Costa Rica, the region with the greatest Hillieae species richness, to confirm pollinators, study plant-pollinator interactions, collect floral trait data, and collect herbarium specimens.
The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Tropical Botany
To promote the preservation of tropical forests by enlarging the body of botanists with field experience.
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