Chicago Botanic Garden

Nora Gavin-Smyth is a botanist whose research integrates taxonomy, genomics, and ecology to understand the evolution of plant diversity. Her botanical research is conducted in tandem with applied and ex situ conservation, combining field, laboratory, and collaborative approaches to support the conservation of threatened plant species. She earned her Ph.D. in plant biology and conservation from Northwestern University in 2024.

Project Summary

Developing Ex Situ Conservation Collections in Tanzania to Understand Speciation within a Megadiverse Genus

Closely related species that occur in close proximity can make excellent systems for studying speciation. This project focuses on the megadiverse genus Impatiens, which has radiated in East Africa with a pattern of closely related, co‑occurring species and rapidly evolving floral forms. However, most of these species are threatened with extinction and are unrepresented in ex situ collections, making local conservation collections urgent. This project establishes ex situ collections in Tanzania and Chicago to safeguard these threatened plants while supporting research to investigate reproductive isolation among closely related species through controlled crossing experiments and transcriptomic analyses, while also building conservation capacity in both regions.