Kathleen M. Pryer
Associate Professor

919-660-7380

358 Bio Sci

http://www.pryerlab.net

Research Interests: Evolutionary biology of early land plants

My research focuses on understanding the evolutionary relationships of ancient land plants, especially ferns and horsetails, by integrating evidence from morphology, molecules (DNA sequence data from multiple genes), and the fossil record. I use an explicit phylogenetic framework to examine the morphological evolution of various sporophytic and gametophytic characters within vascular plants, and to gain insight into the evolution of various life history traits and the body plans that typify vascular plants. A phylogenetic perspective also informs my molecular evolutionary studies that attempt to elucidate why we observe remarkable rate heterogeneity in chloroplast genes in land plant phylogeny.

Representative Publications   (More Publications)   (search)

1. Schuettpelz E. and K.M. Pryer, Toward a comprehensive phylogeny of extant ferns, Taxon 56: 1037-1050. (2007) .
2. Korall, P., D.S. Conant, J.S. Metzgar, H. Schneider, K.M. Pryer, A molecular phylogeny of scaly tree ferns (Cyatheaceae), American Journal of Botany 94: 873-886 (2007) (cover.) .
3. Haugen, P., D. Bhattacharya, J.D. Palmer, S. Turner, L.A. Lewis, and K.M. Pryer, Cyanobacterial ribosomal RNA genes with multiple, endonuclease-encoding group I introns, BMC Evolutionary Biology 7: 159 (2007) .
4. Schuettpelz, E. and K.M. Pryer, Reconciling extreme branch length differences: decoupling time and rate through the evolutionary history of filmy ferns, Systematic Biology 55:485-502 (2006) (2006 Publisher's Award for Excellence in Systematic Research.) .
5. Pryer, K.M., E. Schuettpelz, P.G. Wolf, H. Schneider, A.R. Smith, R. Cranfill, Phylogeny and evolution of ferns (monilophytes) with a focus on the early leptosporangiate divergences, American Journal of Botany, vol. 91 (October, 2004), pp. 1582-1598 .
6. Schneider, H., E. Schuettpelz, K.M. Pryer, R. Cranfill, S. Magallón, R. Lupia, Ferns diversified in the shadow of angiosperms, Nature, vol. 428 (1 April, 2004), pp. 553-557 .
7. Pryer, K.M., H. Schneider, A.R. Smith, R. Cranfill, P.G. Wolf, J.S. Hunt, and S.D. Sipes, Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants, Nature, vol. 409 (2001), pp. 618-622 (cover) .