About me
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Welcome to my website!
I am broadly interested in understanding the ecology and evolution of land plants, particularly the spore-dispersed vascular plants: ferns and lycophytes. I am especially interested in the role of hybridization and polyploidy as forces shaping fern and lycophyte diversity in the American tropics and the systematics and taxonomy of the clubmoss family (Lycopodiaceae). To address these questions, I work extensively with natural history collections and integrate systematics, taxonomy, biogeography, phylogenomics, and functional ecology in my research. See my research page for more! I am currently a postdoc in the Antonelli Lab at the University of Gothenburg, Sweden. Currently, my principal research project focuses on modeling extinction risks for the imperiled flora of Hiospaniola, the second largest island in the Caribbean. This project integrates natural history collections, biodiversity informatics, remote sensing, conservation, and modeling approaches. I am hoping that this work will help inform conservation efforts in Haiti and the Dominican Republic (the two countries that occupy the island of Hispaniola). I recently completed a postdoc in the Biology Department at the University of Florida, working on the Genealogy of Flagellate Plants with Emily Sessa. We have generated a lot of data through this project and have many ongoing projects resolving the evolutionary histories of thousands of species of bryophytes, lycophytes, ferns, and gymnosperms. A preprint outlining probe development and some pilot studies associated with that project can be found here. My CV is available here! Reach me at: Weston Testo 527 Bartram Hall Department of Biology Box 118525 University of Florida Gainesville, FL 32611 wtesto[at]ufl.edu 802-338-7174 |
On the hunt for ferns in Colombia with fern guru Wilson Rodriguez. Photo by Eduardo Posada.
A good haul: Asplenium trichomanes, A. ceterach, A. septentrionale, and Cheilanthes persica. At the Armenia-Iran border, summer 2016.
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