UNIverse - Public Research Portal
MALEavatar

Dr. Jurriaan de Vos

Department of Environmental Sciences
Profiles & Affiliations

Plant diversity and evolution

My research addresses fundamental questions about the patterns and processes that explain the changes in plant diversity through time. With a background in systematics and (macro-)evolutionary biology, I am particularly interested in using phylogenetic approaches to reveal evolutionary relationships among taxa, including formal classification, and address the drivers of niche- and trait evolution, often with a particular focus on reproductive diversity. To this end, my study groups are clades that display relevant dimensions of diversity, such as island and mountain radiations or groups with species in extreme environments or with extreme morphologies. These include Aeonium, Saxifraga, Primula, Lupinus, Montiaceae, Cactaceae, and Connaraceae. Herbaria are a central tool in my research, and I am also interested in the prelinnean history of herbarium-based research.

Selected Publications

Carruthers, Tom, Moerland, Michelangelo S., Ebersbach, Jana, Favre, Adrien, Folk, Ryan A., Hawkins, Julie A., Muellner-Riehl, Alexandra N., Röser, Martin, Soltis, Douglas E., Tkach, Natalia, Baker, William J., de Vos, Jurriaan M., & Eiserhardt, Wolf L. (2024). Repeated upslope biome shifts in Saxifraga during late-Cenozoic climate cooling. Nature Communications, 15(1). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-024-45289-w

URLs
URLs

Bätscher, L., & de Vos, J. M. (2024). Avoiding impacts of phylogenetic tip-state-errors on dispersal and extirpation rates in alpine plant biogeography. Journal of Biogeography, 51(6), 1104–1116. https://doi.org/10.1111/jbi.14811

URLs
URLs

De Vos, Jurriaan M., & Stöcklin, Jürg. (2023). A second Renaissance of herbarium-based research, almost five centuries after their invention [Journal-article]. BAUHINIA – Zeitschrift Der Basler Botanischen Gesellschaft, 29, 3–6. https://doi.org/10.12685/bauhinia.1345

URLs
URLs

dos Santos, Patricia, Brilhante, Miguel Angelo, Messerschmid, Thibaud F. E., Serrano, Helena Cristina, Kadereit, Gudrun, Branquinho, Cristina, & de Vos, Jurriaan M. (2022). Plant growth forms dictate adaptations to the local climate. Frontiers in Plant Science, 13, 1023595. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.1023595

URLs
URLs

Selected Projects & Collaborations

Project cover

From Bauhin to Lachenal: Enabling digital access to the historic 16th-18th century herbaria in Basel

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

The scope of the project is enabling digital access to almost 10'000 singular historic (16th-18th century) herbarium specimens at the Herbaria Basel , by updating and expanding the digital information associated with five partially digitized, important historic herbaria following standards laid out in Frick & Greeff (2021). Meta-data for digital specimens will include all fields required for specimen filing and finding (physically, in the database, and online), such as collecting information (names, dates, administrative areas) and taxonomic information (determination, consistent name resolution, type status). This project is important because it promotes digital accessibility to important specimens : Accessibility and conservation of research-relevant data are a core task of herbaria and are within the scope of SwissCollNet. Our project mobilizes the information of close to 10'000 singular historic specimens and presents them online, besides via our institutional internet-portal (herbarium.unibas.ch, in development), also via Global Biodiversity Information Facility ( www.gbif.org ) and within the timeframe of the project also via Global Plants on JSTOR (plants.jstor.org). All data will also be integrated in the Swiss Virtual Natural History Collection portal (in development) by meeting established Swiss-wide standards.

Project cover

In the footsteps of Sarasin and Christ: digitization of fern collections at the herbaria in Basel and Zürich

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

The world's herbaria document the diversity of plant life across the globe and through time. Many of the first descriptions of plants were based on material stemming from rather adventurous collection expeditions and remarkable personalities. Therefore, many historic collections are simultaneously of exceptional cultural, historic, and scientific value, often interwoven with colonial history. This is particularly true for tropical regions. The Sarasin cousins (Karl Friedrich (Fritz), 1859-1942; and Paul Benedict, 1856-1929) from Basel are such remarkable personalities with profound impacts both on cultural and natural history. Being born wealthy in the upper societal echelons of Basel, their gay love was taboo, prompting them to spend their fortunes to make a career as scientific explorers in Asia, primarily in Ceylon (now Sri Lanka), Celebes (now Sulawesi, Indonesia) and New Caledonia (incl. the loyalty Islands, where Fritz was the first-ever plant collector; Schär 2015). By traveling and collecting in the largely uncontacted interiors of these places collaborating with colonial rulers, their expeditions had a political note, but also resulted in profound impacts on natural history. The collecting expeditions of the Sarasin cousins resulted in rich collections; estimated at ca. 300'000 specimens of gastropods, arthropods, birds, mammals, and spiders, as well as 680 ethnographic objects and 600 photographs from Celebes alone (Schär 2015). These specimens form important parts of the collections of the Natural History Museum and Museum of Cultures in Basel. Strikingly less known, but equally important, are the estimated 3000 botanical collections of the Sarasin cousins. These specimens were sent back to Switzerland, where they were examined and identified by specialists, resulting in a flurry of new species. Hermann Christ (1833-1933) of Basel, the world's primary fern specialist at the time, despite being professionally a lawyer, described at least 36 fern species from Celebes alone ("Filices Sarisinianae", Christ, 1894-97). These plants were then donated to the Herbarium of the University of Basel, but remained unincorporated. In Zurich, Hans Schinz (1858-1941) and colleagues treated the angiosperms from New Caledonia, a significant part of which were then donated to Basel for reasons unknown. The importance of the Sarasin collections is underlined by regular re-discovery of Type material (e.g. Chen et al. 2021), always in association with Christ's previous work on these specimens. Overall, Christ's influence on fern taxonomy is paramount, already from his ca. 310 papers and ca. 1800 basionyms that he published.

Project cover

PRO-Alp. Plant reproduction of the alpine zone: disentangling ecological drivers of trait evolution

Research Project  | 2 Project Members

How do plants adapt during major ecological transitions, such as evolutionary shifts between biomes? In particular, should we expect different plant species to adapt in similar ways to the same ecological challenges? And what specific aspects of ecological transitions drive phenotypic evolution? These are the motivating questions of the four-year project that addresses drivers of reproductive trait evolution in genera that radiated across elevational belts in multiple mountain systems. By reconstructing evolutionary trees (phylogenies) of these species, the project will link shifts in climatic niches to the evolution of plant traits, in particular flowers and inflorescences. By including tropical alpine, temperate alpine, and lowland species, we can reveal what specific aspects of climatic niches drive the evolution of plant form and plant reproduction. Multiple genera allow for addressing the extent to which species from different evolutionary backgrounds evolve similarly (convergently) along the same environmental gradients, helping us to understand whether studies of adaptation on few species can be generalized. That alpine species look different from lowland species is known to every Swiss person. Surprisingly, we still don't understand what specific aspects of high elevation ecosystems drive this striking trend in trait evolution. One problem in studying this problem is that the processes of adaptation are typically very slow, so experiments (e.g. transplant experiments or climatic modifications) may yield only limited information related to plasticity and evolution from standing genetic variation, ignoring trait evolution in deep evolutionary time. Therefore, this project uses plant diversity and radiations as "evolutionary experiments" by analyzing the phylogenies of species that are already adapted to diverse environments.