MSI PI Ya Yang (assistant professor, Plant and Microbial Biology)
was featured recently on the Bell Museum’s blog. Professor Yang is curator of plants at the Bell. You can read the story about the collection and Professor Yang’s research on the Bell Museum’s website: Adventures in Plant Evolution.
Professor Yang uses MSI for phylogenetic, transcriptomic, and genomic analyses of plants in order to reconstruct species relationships and to study polyploidy, reticulate evolution, and gene families involved in pigmentation, plant carnivory, and stress tolerance. MSI partnered with the Bell Museum to create the Minnesota Biodiversity Atlas, a searchable, public map showing where Bell Museum animal, plant, and fungal specimens have been found and collected.