A long-term interest in the Hawaiian Islands – beginning from Theresa’s undergrad days in the lab of Dr. Stephen Weller and Ann Sakai – is continuing in our latest project. In collaboration with Dr. Valerie Pence at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s Center for Conservation and Research of Wildlife (CREW) and Dr. Nellie Sugii at the Lyon Arboretum on O’ahu, our lab helped to develop genetic markers to aid in the conservation and cryopreservation of several endangered plant species in Hawai’i. Today we continue our collaboration with CREW on the study of endangered oaks in North America. Known as “exceptional” plant species, these plants that cannot be conserved using conventional seed banking mechanisms (either with recalcitrant seeds or they just do not produce enough seed). Both projects are funded by the Institute of Museum and Library Services (IMLS).
In addition to our project with the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Garden’s CREW team, we also have longstanding experience working with the Hawaiian genus, Schiedea. This genus that has undergone extensive radiation in the Hawaiian Islands and contains a full range of breeding systems – including hermaphroditism, gynodioecy (co-occurrence of females and hermaphrodites), and dioecy (co-occurrence of females and males).
In our lab at UC, we are now continuing to use microsatellite markers we developed to examine issues of population genetics, migration rates, and gene flow.
The Culley Lab 