Scholars@Duke
Blanka Aguero

Blanka Aguero

Data Manager
Biology
blanka@duke.edu
Box 90338, Durham, NC 27708-0338
Biosci 371A, Durham, NC 27708

Selected Publications

From spectators to stewards: Transforming public involvement in natural history collections

Journal Article Natural History Collections and Museomics · December 18, 2024 A comprehensive overview of volunteer-driven public programs focused on activities to enhance natural history collections (NHCs) is provided. The initiative revolves around the WeDigBio events and the Collections Club at the Field Museum, aiming to ... Full text Cite

Ecological differentiation and sympatry of cryptic species in the Sphagnum magellanicum complex (Bryophyta).

Journal Article American journal of botany · September 2024 PremiseSphagnum magellanicum (Sphagnaceae, Bryophyta) has been considered to be a single semi-cosmopolitan species, but recent molecular analyses have shown that it comprises a complex of at least seven reciprocally monophyletic groups, that are d ... Full text Cite

Parallel patterns of genetic diversity and structure in circumboreal species of the Sphagnum capillifolium complex.

Journal Article American journal of botany · May 2024 PremiseShared geographical patterns of population genetic variation among related species is a powerful means to identify the historical events that drive diversification. The Sphagnum capillifolium complex is a group of closely related peat mosse ... Full text Cite

Divergent selection and climate adaptation fuel genomic differentiation between sister species of Sphagnum (peat moss).

Journal Article Annals of botany · November 2023 Background and aimsNew plant species can evolve through the reinforcement of reproductive isolation via local adaptation along habitat gradients. Peat mosses (Sphagnaceae) are an emerging model system for the study of evolutionary genomics and hav ... Full text Cite

Demographic history and gene flow in the peatmosses Sphagnum recurvum and Sphagnum flexuosum (Bryophyta: Sphagnaceae).

Journal Article Ecology and evolution · November 2022 Population size changes and gene flow are processes that can have significant impacts on evolution. The aim of this study was to investigate the relationship of geography to patterns of gene flow and population size changes in a pair of closely related ... Full text Cite

Species delimitation and biogeography of a southern hemisphere liverwort clade, Frullania subgenus Microfrullania (Frullaniaceae, Marchantiophyta).

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · February 2017 Frullania subgenus Microfrullania is a clade of ca. 15 liverwort species occurring in Australasia, Malesia, and southern South America. We used combined nuclear and chloroplast sequence data from 265 ingroup accessions to test species circumscriptions and ... Full text Cite

Organellar phylogenomics of an emerging model system: Sphagnum (peatmoss).

Journal Article Annals of botany · August 2016 Background and aimsSphagnum-dominated peatlands contain approx. 30 % of the terrestrial carbon pool in the form of partially decomposed plant material (peat), and, as a consequence, Sphagnum is currently a focus of studies on biogeochemistry and c ... Full text Cite

Increased diversification rates follow shifts to bisexuality in liverworts.

Journal Article The New phytologist · May 2016 Shifts in sexual systems are one of the key drivers of species diversification. In contrast to angiosperms, unisexuality prevails in bryophytes. Here, we test the hypotheses that bisexuality evolved from an ancestral unisexual condition and is a key innova ... Full text Cite

Endemism in the moss flora of North America.

Journal Article American journal of botany · April 2016 Premise of the studyIdentifying regions of high endemism is a critical step toward understanding the mechanisms underlying diversification and establishing conservation priorities. Here, we identified regions of high moss endemism across North Ame ... Full text Cite

Geographical range in liverworts: does sex really matter?

Journal Article Journal of biogeography · March 2016 AIM: Why some species exhibit larger geographical ranges than others remains a fundamental, but largely unanswered, question in ecology and biogeography. In plants, a relationship between range size and mating system was proposed over a century ago and sub ... Full text Cite

Rediscovery and reinstatement of the New Caledonian endemic filmy fern Hymenophyllum pumilio Rosenst

Journal Article New Zealand Journal of Botany · January 2, 2016 The filmy fern Hymenophyllum pumilio was described in 1911 from a single collection made during 1910 from New Caledonia. It was not recorded again until its rediscovery during an expedition to New Caledonia in 2012. In the interim, it was synonymised in 20 ... Full text Cite

Phylogenetic structure and biogeography of the Pacific Rim clade of Sphagnum subgen. Subsecunda: haploid and allodiploid taxa

Journal Article Biological journal of the Linnean Society. Linnean Society of London · October 2015 Although it is an uncommon distribution in seed plants, many bryophytes occur around the Pacific Rim of north‐western North America and eastern Asia. This work focuses on a clade of peatmosses (Sphagnum) that is distributed around the Pacific Rim region, w ... Full text Cite

Phylogeny and classification of Lejeuneaceae subtribe Cheilolejeuneinae (Marchantiophyta) based on nuclear and plastid molecular markers

Journal Article Cryptogamie, Bryologie · October 1, 2015 Cheilolejeuneinae is an early diverging lineage of Lejeuneaceae tribe Lejeuneeae with a pantropical distribution. The current phylogeny and classification of this subtribe is based on morphological and limited-sampling molecular studies. Here we present a ... Full text Cite

Phylogenetic Relationships and Morphological Evolution in a Major Clade of Leafy Liverworts (Phylum Marchantiophyta, Order Jungermanniales): Suborder Jungermanniineae

Journal Article Systematic botany · February 2015 —The suborder Jungermanniineae of the Jungermanniales is a major lineage of leafy liverworts, recognized in recent classifications to include 15 families. Gametophytes within the suborder are morphologically diverse, but commonly anisophyllous to distichou ... Full text Cite

Pleistocene survival, regional genetic structure and interspecific gene flow among three northern peat‐mosses: Sphagnum inexspectatum, S. orientale and S. miyabeanum

Journal Article Journal of biogeography · February 2015 AIM: Arctic plant species are often characterized by a complex genetic structure because of changes in their population size, the fragmentation of metapopulation systems, extensive hybridization and allopolyploidization, and survival in disjunct refugia, h ... Full text Cite

Extant diversity of bryophytes emerged from successive post-Mesozoic diversification bursts.

Journal Article Nature communications · October 2014 Unraveling the macroevolutionary history of bryophytes, which arose soon after the origin of land plants but exhibit substantially lower species richness than the more recently derived angiosperms, has been challenged by the scarce fossil record. Here we d ... Full text Cite

On the taxonomic status of the enigmatic Phycolepidoziaceae (Marchantiophyta: Jungermanniales) with description of a new species, Phycolepidozia indica

Journal Article Taxon · June 30, 2014 The monospecific Phycolepidoziaceae with the single neotropical species Phycolepidozia exigua is a highly specialized leafy liverwort without vegetative leaves. The extreme reduction of morphological and anatomical characters of Phycolepidozia has caused u ... Full text Cite

Intercontinental genetic structure in the amphi-Pacific peatmoss Sphagnum miyabeanum (Bryophyta: Sphagnaceae)

Journal Article Biological Journal of the Linnean Society · January 1, 2014 Unlike seed plants where global biogeographical patterns typically involve interspecific phylogenetic history, spore-producing bryophyte species often have intercontinental distributions that are best understood from a population genetic perspective. We so ... Full text Cite

Origins, genetic structure, and systematics of the narrow endemic peatmosses (Sphagnum): S. guwassanense and S. triseriporum (Sphagnaceae).

Journal Article American journal of botany · June 2013 UnlabelledPremise of the studySphagnum dominates vast expanses of wetland habitats throughout the northern hemisphere and species delimitation within the genus is important because floristic changes associated with a warming global climat ... Full text Cite

Common but new: Bartramia rosamrosiae, a "new" widespread species of apple mosses (Bartramiales, Bryophytina) from the Mediterranean and western North America

Journal Article Phytotaxa · November 23, 2012 Recent phylogenetic analyses challenged the traditional generic concept of the Bartramiaceae (apple mosses), especially with regard to the largest genus Bartramia. Although molecular analyses revealed the three Bartramia sections (Bartramia, Strictidium an ... Full text Cite

Genetic analysis of the peatmoss Sphagnum cribrosum (Sphagnaceae) indicates independent origins of an extreme infra-specific morphology shift

Journal Article Biological Journal of the Linnean Society · May 1, 2012 Within Sphagnum cribrosum, a dioicous aquatic peatmoss, a unique morphological variant (the 'waveform'), found at only two lakes in North Carolina, has a branching architecture that is extremely differentiated from anything otherwise known in Sphagnum, alt ... Full text Cite

Climacium (Climaciaceae): Species relationships and biogeographic implications

Journal Article Bryologist · March 1, 2012 Climacium is a small but morphologically distinctive genus ("tree mosses") with four species distributed primarily in the Northern Hemisphere. Climacium dendroides occurs around the globe at northern latitudes with disjunct populations in Mexico and New Ze ... Full text Cite

A phylogenetic monograph of the Sphagnum subsecundum complex (Sphagnaceae) in eastern North America

Journal Article Bryologist · March 1, 2012 A taxonomic treatment based on field studies, examination of herbarium collections, and previously published molecular data is provided for the North American species of the Sphagnum subsecundum complex. Sphagnum platyphyllum, S. contortum, S. lescurii, an ... Full text Cite

A phylogeny of the northern temperate leafy liverwort genus Scapania (Scapaniaceae, Jungermanniales).

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · March 2012 Scapania is a northern temperate genus with a few disjunctions in the south. Despite receiving considerable attention, the supraspecific classification of this genus remains unsatisfactorily solved. We use three molecular markers (nrITS, cpDNA trnL-F regio ... Full text Cite

Systematics of the Sphagnum fimbriatum complex: Phylogenetic relationships, morphological variation, and allopolyploidy

Journal Article Systematic Botany · January 1, 2012 The application of genetic tools for studying species delimitation and relationships in Sphagnum (peatmosses) has demonstrated that evolutionary patterns are complex and include homoploid hybridization and multiple taxa of allopolyploid origin. We investig ... Full text Cite

Frequent pseudogenization and loss of the plastid-encoded sulfate-transport gene cysA throughout the evolution of liverworts.

Journal Article American journal of botany · August 2011 Premise of the studyThe presence or absence of a functional copy of a plastid gene may reflect relaxed selection, and may be phylogenetically significant, reflecting shared ancestry. In some liverworts, the plastid gene cysA is a pseudogene (infer ... Full text Cite

Formalizing morphologically cryptic biological entities: new insights from DNA taxonomy, hybridization, and biogeography in the leafy liverwort Porella platyphylla (Jungermanniopsida, Porellales).

Journal Article American journal of botany · August 2011 Premise of the studyRecognition and formalization of morphologically cryptic species is a major challenge to modern taxonomy. An extreme example in this regard is the Holarctic Porella platyphylla s.l. (P. platyphylla plus P. platyphylloidea). Ear ... Full text Cite

A multi-locus molecular phylogeny of the Lepidoziaceae: laying the foundations for a stable classification.

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · May 2011 The Lepidoziaceae, with over 700 species in 30 genera, is one of the largest leafy liverwort families. Despite receiving considerable attention, the composition of subfamilies and genera remains unsatisfactorily resolved. In this study, 10 loci (one nuclea ... Full text Cite

North American origin and recent European establishments of the amphi-Atlantic peat moss Sphagnum angermanicum.

Journal Article Evolution; international journal of organic evolution · April 2011 Genetic and morphological similarity between populations separated by large distances may be caused by frequent long-distance dispersal or retained ancestral polymorphism. The frequent lack of differentiation between disjunct conspecific moss populations o ... Full text Cite

Bryophyte diversity and evolution: windows into the early evolution of land plants.

Journal Article American journal of botany · March 2011 The "bryophytes" comprise three phyla of plants united by a similar haploid-dominant life cycle and unbranched sporophytes bearing one sporangium: the liverworts (Marchantiophyta), mosses (Bryophyta), and hornworts (Anthocerophyta). Combined, these groups ... Full text Cite

Phylogeny of the leafy liverwort Ptilidium: cryptic speciation and shared haplotypes between the Northern and Southern Hemispheres.

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · December 2010 The small, phylogenetically isolated liverwort genus Ptilidium has been regarded as of cool-Gondwanic origin with the bipolar, terrestrial Ptilidium ciliare giving rise to the Northern Hemisphere epiphytes Ptilidium pulcherrimum and Ptilidium californicum. ... Full text Cite

Narrow species concepts in the Frullania dilatata-appalachiana-eboracensis complex (Porellales, Jungermanniopsida): evidence from nuclear and chloroplast DNA markers

Journal Article Plant systematics and evolution = Entwicklungsgeschichte und Systematik der Pflanzen · December 2010 We investigated the phylogeny of a Holarctic-Asian group of Frullania species, the Frullania dilatata-F. appalachiana-F. eboracensis complex, using multiple accessions of morphologically circumscribed taxa and three molecular markers (nrITS region, cp DNA ... Full text Cite

Morphologically cryptic biological species within the liverwort Frullania asagrayana.

Journal Article American journal of botany · October 2010 UnlabelledPremise of the studyThe Frullania tamarisci complex includes eight Holarctic liverwort species. One of these, F. asagrayana, is distributed broadly throughout eastern North America from Canada to the Gulf Coast. Preliminary gene ... Full text Open Access Cite

One species or at least eight? Delimitation and distribution of Frullania tamarisci (L.) Dumort. s. l. (Jungermanniopsida, Porellales) inferred from nuclear and chloroplast DNA markers.

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · September 2010 Frullania tamarisci is usually regarded as a polymorphic, holarctic-Asian liverwort species with four allopatric subspecies [subsp. asagrayana, moniliata, nisquallensis and tamarisci]. This hypothesis is examined using a dataset including sequences of the ... Full text Cite

Newly resolved relationships in an early land plant lineage: Bryophyta class Sphagnopsida (peat mosses).

Journal Article American journal of botany · September 2010 UnlabelledPremise of the studyThe Sphagnopsida, an early-diverging lineage of mosses (phylum Bryophyta), are morphologically and ecologically unique and have profound impacts on global climate. The Sphagnopsida are currently classified in ... Full text Open Access Cite

Peatmoss (Sphagnum) diversification associated with Miocene Northern Hemisphere climatic cooling?

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · June 2010 Global climate changes sometimes spark biological radiations that can feed back to effect significant ecological impacts. Northern Hemisphere peatlands dominated by living and dead peatmosses (Sphagnum) harbor almost 30% of the global soil carbon pool and ... Full text Cite

Phylogeographic analyses reveal distinct lineages of the liverworts Metzgeria furcata (L.) Dumort. and Metzgeria conjugata Lindb. (Metzgeriaceae) in Europe and North America

Journal Article Biological journal of the Linnean Society. Linnean Society of London · December 2009 Seed plant genera often exhibit intercontinental disjunctions where different species are found on different continents. Many morphologically circumscribed bryophyte species exhibit similar disjunctions. We used nucleotide sequences from the plastid and nu ... Full text Cite

A Genetic Analysis of Two Recently Described Peat Moss Species, Sphagnum atlanticum and S. bergianum (Sphagnaceae).

Journal Article Systematic botany · January 2009 Microsatellite markers were used to test whether two recently described species of Sphagnum (Bryophyta), S. atlanticum R.E. Andrus and S. bergianum R.E. Andrus, represent distinct gene pools. The first species is considered endemic to eastern North America ... Full text Cite

Genetic structure and genealogy in the Sphagnum subsecundum complex (Sphagnaceae: Bryophyta).

Journal Article Molecular phylogenetics and evolution · October 2008 Allopolyploidy is probably the most extensively studied mode of plant speciation and allopolyploid species appear to be common in the mosses (Bryophyta). The Sphagnum subsecundum complex includes species known to be gametophytically haploid or diploid, and ... Full text Cite

Sphagnum Beringiense sp. nov. (bryophyta) from Arctic Alaska, Based on Morphological and Molecular Data.

Journal Article Systematic botany. · July 2008 A new species of Sphagnum section Subsecunda, S. beringiense , is described from arctic Alaska from the vicinity of Barrow along the northern coast. The species is distinguished morphologically by the light, yellow-green color of the gametophytes, multistr ... Full text Cite

A phylogenetic delimitation of the "Sphagnum subsecundum complex" (Sphagnaceae, Bryophyta).

Journal Article American journal of botany · June 2008 A seemingly obvious but sometimes overlooked premise of any evolutionary analysis is delineating the group of taxa under study. This is especially problematic in some bryophyte groups because of morphological simplicity and convergence. This research appli ... Full text Cite