I am a pollination biologist and fascinated by deceptive flower-pollinator interactions. Many deceptive plants evolved highly synorganized flowers to trap their pollinators. I explore how functional floral traits are linked to deceptive strategies using Ceropegieae (Apocyinaceae-Asclepiadoideae) as a model system. To understand recurrent evolutionary shifts between pitfall and open flowers within this plant group, I combine chemical ecology, pollination biology, phylogenetics, and evodevo studies in a comparative approach.
Keywords
Analytical chemistry (headspace, GC/MS), deceptive pollination, floral transcriptomics, insect electrophysiology (GC/EAD), spectrophotometry