A Tale of Two Vines: The Far Reaching and Few Between

The Potowmack Chapter of the Northern Virginia Plant Society (http://vnps.org/potowmack) cordially invites you to:
A Talk by Dr. Ashley Egan

Sunday, November 12, 2017
12:30 pm to 3:00  pm

Green Spring Gardens
4603 Green Spring Road
Alexandria, VA

VNPS programs are free and open to the public

The Talk will follow a short business Annual Meeting:
Kudzu, one of the most notorious invasive species in the U.S., now occupies most of the southeast, and continues to make headway. Introduced from Asia about 140 years ago, it is still not understood how many times it’s been introduced or from what genetic source(s). Dr. Egan’s lab focuses on answering these questions.  Kudzu impacts native species, including other native legume vines such as the wild thicket bean or North American wild kidney bean (Phaseolus polystachios). The wild kidney bean is an important crop and wild relative to the cultivated Lima bean, serving as a critical genetic resource for plant breeding efforts, yet its range is in decline where Kudzu is advancing. Dr. Egan’s collaborative work has made significant efforts to characterize the conservation status of this Virginia native species.

Dr. Ashley N. Egan is a research scientist and assistant curator at the National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, where she specializes in legume biology (Fabaceae).  Dr. Egan completed her undergraduate degree at Utah State University studying the population genetics of the trout lily, Erythronium grandiflorum. She then completed her PhD in Molecular and Evolutionary Biology at Brigham Young University in 2006, and accepted a postdoc position at Cornell University.  She taught at East Carolina University where she began her work studying the evolutionary genetics and introduction history of Kudzu, part of which she will share with us.