Duke Herbarium

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  • Kathleen M. Pryer

  • Duke Herbarium
  • Biological Sciences Building
  • Campus Box 90338
  • Homepage

  • Specialties

    • Vascular Plants

  • Research Summary

    Evolutionary biology of early land plants

  • Research Description

    My research focuses on understanding the evolutionary relationships of ancient land plants, especially ferns and horsetails, by integrating evidence from morphology, molecules (DNA sequence data from multiple genes), and the fossil record. I use an explicit phylogenetic framework to examine the morphological evolution of various sporophytic and gametophytic characters within vascular plants, and to gain insight into the evolution of various life history traits and the body plans that typify vascular plants. A phylogenetic perspective also informs my molecular evolutionary studies that attempt to elucidate why we observe remarkable rate heterogeneity in chloroplast genes in land plant phylogeny.

  • Education

      • Ph.D., Botany,
      • Department of Botany,
      • Duke University,
      • 1995
      • M.Sc., Botany,
      • University of Guelph,
      • 1981
      • B.Sc., Biology,
      • McGill University,
      • 1976

  • Awards, Honors and Distinctions

      • NSF CAREER Award (Early Development Career Award),
      • May 2004
      • Lawrence Memorial Award,
      • Hunt Institute, Carnegie-Mellon University,
      • December 1994
      • John Macoun Travel Bursary,
      • Canadian Botanical Association,
      • December 1993
      • Lionel Cinq Mars Award,
      • Canadian Botanical Association,
      • December 1993
      • Edgar T. Wherry Award,
      • December 1988

  • Selected Publications

      • Li, F.-W., K.M. Pryer, and M.D. Windham.
      • (2012).
      • Gaga, a new fern genus segregated from Cheilanthes (Pteridaceae).
      • Systematic Botany
      • ,
      • 37
      • ,
      • 845-860.
      • Beck, J.B., J. Allison, K.M. Pryer, and M.D. Windham.
      • (2012).
      • Identifying multiple origins of polyploid taxa: a multilocus study of the hybrid cloak fern (Astrolepis integerrima; Pteridaceae).
      • American Journal of Botany
      • ,
      • 99
      • ,
      • 1857-1865.
      • Rothfels, C.J., A. Larsson, L.-Y. Kuo, P. Korall, W.-L. Chiou, and K.M. Pryer.
      • (2012).
      • Overcoming deep roots, fast rates, and short internodes to resolve the ancient rapid radiation of eupolypods II ferns.
      • Systematic Biology
      • ,
      • 61
      • ,
      • 490-509.
      • Johnson, A.K., C.J. Rothfels, M.D. Windham, and K.M. Pryer.
      • (2012).
      • Unique expression of a sporophytic character on the gametophytes of notholaenid ferns (Pteridaceae).
      • American Journal of Botany
      • ,
      • 99
      • ,
      • 1118-1124.
      • Schuettpelz, E. and K.M. Pryer.
      • (2009).
      • Evidence for a Cenozoic radiation of ferns in an angiosperm-dominated canopy.
      • Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, USA 106: 11200-11205 (cover).
      • .
      • Schuettpelz E. and K.M. Pryer.
      • (2007).
      • Fern phylogeny inferred from 400 leptosporangiate species and three plastid genes..
      • Taxon 56: 1037-1050.
      • .
      • Schneider, H., E. Schuettpelz, K.M. Pryer, R. Cranfill, S. Magallón, R. Lupia.
      • (2004).
      • Ferns diversified in the shadow of angiosperms.
      • Nature
      • ,
      • 428
      • ,
      • 553-557.
      • Pryer, K.M., H. Schneider, A.R. Smith, R. Cranfill, P.G. Wolf, J.S. Hunt, and S.D. Sipes.
      • (2001).
      • Horsetails and ferns are a monophyletic group and the closest living relatives to seed plants.
      • Nature
      • ,
      • 409
      • ,
      • 618-622 (cover).
  • View All Publications

  • Postdoctoral Students

    • James Beck
      • September, 2007 - August, 2009
      • Research Assistant Professor, Wichita State University
    • Layne Huiet
      • August, 2007 - June, 2010
      • Senior Research Scientist, Pryer Lab, Duke University
    • Eric Schuettpelz
      • May, 2007 - July 31, 2009
      • Assistant Professor, University of North Carolina at Wilmington, NC
    • David Hearn
      • March, 2005 - February, 2006
      • Assistant Professor, Towson University, MD
    • Petra Korall
      • July 1, 2004 - December 31, 2006
      • Associate Professor, Uppsala University, Sweden
    • Sabine Hennequin
      • 2004 - December, 2007
      • Maitre de Conferences, Université Pierre et Marie Curie (Paris 6).
    • Michal Skakuj
      • October 01, 2003 - July 31, 2005
      • Ph.D., University of Gdansk, Poland
    • Nathalie Nagalingum
      • August, 2003 - July, 2007
      • Research Scientist, New South Wales Herbarium, Sydney, Australia
    • Jennifer Steinbachs
      • 1999-2000
      • Ph.D., University of Connecticut, 1999. Currently deputy director of the Center for Genomics and Bioinformatics, Indiana University
    • Stefan Zoller
      • 1999 - 2001
      • Ph.D., Swiss Federal Institute for Forest, Snow and Landscape Research, 1999. Currently a postdoc at the North Carolina Super Computing Center.
    • Harald Schneider
      • 1999-2001
      • Ph.D., University of Zurich, Switzerland, 1996. Currently an Assistant Professor at the Albrecht-von-Haller Institut of Plant Sciences, University of Göttingen, Germany.

  • PhD Students

    • Fay-Wei Li
      • August, 2010 - present
    • Erin Sigel
      • August, 2008 - present
    • Amanda Grusz
      • August, 2007 - present
Kathleen M. Pryer
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