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Presentation: What Does it Mean to be a Species in “the Paintbrushes?”
November 18 @ 7:00 pm - 8:00 pm
Monday, November 18, 2024, 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm
Title: What Does it Mean to be a Species in “the Paintbrushes?”
Presenter: Dr. Sarah Jacobs, a Specialist in our Western Flora, Assistant Curator of Botany and Howell Chair of Western North American Botany California Academy of Sciences
Location: Via Zoom. For information, please visit Events at: http://emerald. npsoregon.org.
The genus Castilleja, also known as “the paintbrushes,” is an iconic group of western wildflowers whose taxonomy has been historically challenging. My work aims to untangle species relationships to understand the evolution of this charismatic group of plants. My talk will cover what we do and don’t know about the biology, physiology, and evolution of Castilleja, as well as how we are beginning to quantify exactly why these species are so hard to tell apart. Along the way, we will ponder: What does it mean to be a species and how do we identify them? How do our expectations of species compare with what we see in the world around us? How does all this fit into our worldview of conservation and management?
Dr. Sarah Jacobs grew up in rural Arkansas and attended the University of Arkansas where she earned a bachelor’s degree in biology. A chance encounter in a plant diversity class led to volunteering and later a summer job at the University of Arkansas Herbarium, which ultimately led to a master’s degree at Washington State University, a brief stint with the U.S. Forest Service in Oregon, and a PhD at the University of Idaho. Sarah worked with Dr. Felipe Zapata at University of California Los Angeles after graduating and accepted her current position at the California Academy of Sciences in 2019. She started her job in the fall of 2020 and has been building her research program since then. Herbaria and collections-based research have been central to developing her interests, her studies, and now her profession.
