7-11 Jul, 2007 - Botany & Plant Biology 2007 Joint Congress (Chicago, USA).
By Sandy Knapp.
The PBI Solanum team all met together at the joint Botany 2007 meetings in Chicago in early July, 2007. Lynn Bohs and Eric Tepe from Utah and Kim Watson and Shannon Croutch (just back from a stay in London working at the NHM) from New York were joined by the entire Wisconsin team – David Spooner, Mercedes Ames, Diego Fajardo and Flor Rodríguez – and Lisa Walley, Sandy Knapp and Jon Bennett from London for a successful update on progress in the project.
Photo: Members of the PBI Solanum team at the project meeting in Chicago, 2007.
From left to right: Diego Fajardo, Flor Rodríguez, Mercedes Ames, Shannon Croutch, Eric Tepe, Lynn Bohs, David Spooner, Kim Watson, Jonathan Bennett, Sandy Knapp.
Michael Nee and Donald McClelland joined us the next day – just in time to hear great talks by David (taxonomy of the cultivated potato), Diego (the Conicibaccata complex), Mercedes (the Brevicaule complex and another on the origin of European cultivated potatoes), Flor (use of the COSII markers in potato taxonomy) and Lynn (phylogeny of the Old World spiny Solanums). Jon presented a poster with an overview of the project and some early results from work on the some 25 endemic Caribbean Solanums(with Naomi Yoder). The presentations showcased the work of the team and were very well received. We all caught up with the wide variety of work being done across the project, planned the next and final phase of work, and developed plans for new website functions. Most importantly, we discussed the ways in which we could publicize the project further, especially outside the specialist taxonomic community. Watch this space for further developments!