Oral Paper

         Conservation Biology

Getting our feet wet to bypass collection bias in Neotropical rivers: research in riverweeds (Podostemaceae) and its implications on conservation of threatened ecosystems

Presenting Author
Ana Maria Bedoya
Description
Riverweeds (Podostemaceae) are the largest group of strictly aquatic angiosperms. The family is unlike any other group of flowering plants in the Neotropics in that they live attached to rocks in fast-flowing aquatic ecosystems like river rapids and waterfalls. It is generally known that the Podostemaceae have a center of diversity in the Neotropics. However, the extent of species distribution and evolutionary history of the family is hindered by the fact that Neotropical Podostemaceae remains underrepresented in herbaria. Past research has shown that the future of rivers and of riverweeds are linked. I will talk about how current efforts in increasing collections of Podostemaceae have implications to conservation of rivers, and to advancing our understanding of evolutionary processes in the dynamic landscape of the tropical Andes. This talk is a call for international collaborative projects supporting local collectors and institutions in Latin America to bolster research in the under-collected river plants. Lets get out feet wet and do research in the increasingly threatened Neotropical rivers.