Everyone likes flowers.
Of course. Flowers appeal to the aesthetic in us. Our appreciation of flowers can probably be dated back to the earliest days of civilization. Different flowers were given different meanings, and they have played an irreplaceable part in the evolution of different cultures, music, literature, art, medicine, and so on.
Flowering plants, or angiosperms, are plants that produce flowers for sexual reproduction. They consist of more than 90% of known land plants and are playing irreplaceable roles ranging from our daily lives to the global economy. Although the floral morphological diversity is seemingly infinite, ALL flowers start as a dome of stem cells, the floral meristem (FM). What’s more, the developmental trajectory of every organ in a flower is determined at initiation: a floral organ has a particular final form because it was produced by the FM at a certain developmental time point and at a certain position. The FM determines the identity, number, position, and timing of initiation of all the organs in a flower, a blueprint that is often referred to as the Bauplan. Proper establishment of the Bauplan is essential for the reproductive success of a plant and variations in the Bauplan lay the foundation for floral morphological diversity
My scientific passion is to understand the molecular developmental mechanisms of FM regulation that underline Bauplan evolution and variation. To realize this long-term passion, I began my research journey by acquiring a thorough understanding of key aspects of floral ground plan and the interactions between different aspects in two charismatic systems: Aquilegia and Mimulus, two emerging evo-devo model systems that I gained expertise working with during my PhD and Postdoc trainings, respectively.
