Camila Alcantara
Ongoing Ph.D. Student (Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, Mexico) in collaboration with N. Ivalu Cacho (Bot. Dept. IBUNAM)

The ancestral habit of woody plants is thought to be that of self-supporting. However, lianas have evolved over 100 times in all major plant lineages and commonly, within large lineages of lianas, trees and shrubs evolved de novo. So far, we ignore why these transitions happen and how the vascular system is involved in these changes. Ipomoeas (Morning glories) are typically vines of pantropical distribution. In Mexico, they have become trees in a clade known as series Arborecentes. For her Ph.D., Camila is studying the systematics, taxonomy and anatomical modifications undergone in this unique clade to try to unravel the phenomenon of habit change from lianas to self-supporting plants. So far we have detected heterochrony may be a key element in the evolution of the self-supporting growth habit.