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Full-Text Articles in Botany

Climate Change And Conservation Of Milkweed: Evidence Of Extensive Admixture Between Common Milkweed And Poke Milkweed, Elizabeth Davies May 2022

Climate Change And Conservation Of Milkweed: Evidence Of Extensive Admixture Between Common Milkweed And Poke Milkweed, Elizabeth Davies

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Global climate change can drive many changes in species interactions. One primary way it affects species is by changing climates, causing species to expand their ranges and allowing them to interact with species from whom they were previously isolated. In plants, new species interactions can result in hybridization – the creation of hybrid offspring between two separate species. This hybridization can increase gene flow between the species and lead to introgression, the transfer of genetic material from one species to another through hybrid backcrossing with the parent species. My thesis investigates hybridization in the model system Asclepias (milkweed) by analyzing …


Investigating The Effect Of Longhorned Milkweed Beetle Larval Root Feeding On Resprouting In Common Milkweed, Margaret Donnan May 2022

Investigating The Effect Of Longhorned Milkweed Beetle Larval Root Feeding On Resprouting In Common Milkweed, Margaret Donnan

Undergraduate Honors Theses

Clonal reproduction is an important form of reproduction for many plants, and plants can grow clonally through a variety of methods, such as belowground stems, specialized organs, or adventitious buds on their roots (Herben and Klimešová 2020). In plants that reproduce via buds on their roots, researchers have shown that damage to roots can stimulate bud production and sprouting (Bartušková and Klimešová 2010). Common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) is a root- sprouting perennial plant that receives yearly damage to its roots via the feeding of the larvae of the specialist longhorned milkweed beetle (Tetraopes tetrophthalmus) (Erwin et al. 2013). In this …


Three Centuries Of Vegetation Change In The William & Mary College Woods Reconstructed Using Phytoliths, Timothy Terlizzi May 2021

Three Centuries Of Vegetation Change In The William & Mary College Woods Reconstructed Using Phytoliths, Timothy Terlizzi

Undergraduate Honors Theses

The College Woods, west of William & Mary’s campus, consists of ~900 acres of protected southern mixed hardwood forest. The woods surround Lake Matoaka, a former millpond established in ~1700. Despite the rich history of the area, little is known about how the dominant vegetative landcover has shifted over the last 300 years. This study set out to quantify the modern vegetation within the College Woods via the phytolith assemblages within the soil and identify shifts in the assemblages since the creation of Lake Matoaka and whether these changes are distinct from the vegetation that existed in the area before …