BotanyManuel Lujan
2016 The Garden Club of America Fellowship in Tropical Botany
Manuel Lujan is a PhD candidate at Rancho Santa Ana Botanic Garden in affiliation with Claremont Graduate University. His research focuses on the systematics and taxonomy of the Neotropical genus (Clusia), which is a group of plants with remarkable diversity in terms of photosynthetic pathways (C3/CAM) and floral reward for pollinators (nectar/resin). He will focus on the evolution of photosynthetic plasticity as well as pollination reward variation in the group using molecular phylogenetic approaches. He will conduct fieldwork in a tropical montane forest in the Andes and the Guyana highlands, which are two major centers of species diversity for (Clusia).
Funded by the Arundel Scholarship
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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