Carica cundinamarcensis

Fernanda Antunes Carvalho

Address

LMU Department für Biologie
Systematische Botanik und Mykologie
Menzinger Straße 67
80638 München
Germany

Contact

Fon: +49 89 17861-251
Fax: +49 89 172638
Email:

Room: 230, second floor

Documents

Publications
Curriculum Vitae

Current Ph.D. project
The evolution of the papaya family, Caricaceae

Caricaceae, a small family comprising six genera and 35 species (with 160 published names) of herbs, shrubs, treelets and one liana. The most important member of the family is Carica papaya, a crop species, the draft genome of which became available in 2008 (Ming et al., Nature 452: 991 – 997).
Most species of Caricaceae are dioecious, but at least one species is monoecious, and several are polygamous, with male individuals, female individuals, and bisexual individuals. The evolution of these sexual systems is not understood. The papaya family has radiated into many different environments from dry areas, like deserts in Mexico and rocky outcrops in Chile, to wet forests as Amazonia and Atlantic Forest. Biogeographically, Caricaceae exhibit a striking amphi-Atlantic disjunction, with 33 species Central and South America (and in the Caribbean) and two in Africa. These last two, restrict to wet habitats in Africa, are Cylicomorpha solmsii in Cameroon and Cylicomorpha parviflora in Kenya and Tanzania. The genera Horovitzia and Jarilla are restricted to Central America, while Vasconcellea and Jacaratia are widely distributed from Mexico to north of Argentina. Few molecular analyses have focused on the entire Caricaceae family, and none have included all genera and species.

The aim of my ongoing Ph.D. research is to solve the evolutionary relationships in Caricaceae and to infer the historical processes that have shaped the evolution of this family over broad scales. Based on the abundant available herbarium material, I am inferring species ranges (testing them with molecular data where needed) and testing the existing species circumscriptions. I shall use molecular clock approaches to infer the directions, frequencies, and absolute times of changes in major morphological traits, flower and fruit traits and sexual systems. I am also planning to contribute a monograph of the Cariaceae for the Flora Neotropica series.

Vasconcellea parviflora

Carica chilensis

Cylicomorpha solmsii

Sources of pictures
Carica cundinamarcensis (= Vasconcellea pubescens), Bot. Mag. 101: t. 6198. 1875.
Vasconcellea parviflora, www.plantsystematics.org
Carica chilensis, www.chileflora.com
Cylicomorpha solmsii, Jean-Paul Ghogue, National Herbarium of Cameroon

Last update: 2011-12-16