The Brazil nut family (Lecythidaceae) are a group of tropical trees that make up an important part of many ecosystems including the Amazon rainforest. Part of my dissertation work focused on bettering our understanding of the systematics of neotropical Lecythidaceae, especially a group called the Parvifolia clade of the genus Eschweilera.

Using a genome sequencing technique called target capture, we showed that some of the most abundant tree species in the Amazon rainforest can hybridize with each other. Given the large and broadly overlapping distributions of some of these species, hybridization and introgression could be a more important evolutionary force in tropical forest than was previously recognized.

Despite some hybridization, overall, previously described species of Eschweilera largely corresponded to genetically distinguishable lineages, supporting previous taxonomic work by Scott Mori and others.

You can read more about this work, which was published in 2021, here.

I’m also involved in a broader effort to reclassify the taxonomy of many neotropical Lecythidaceae so that their names better reflect their evolutionary history. Stay tuned for that publication!

You can also learn a lot more about Lecythidaceae on the New York Botanical Garden website, here.