Hamilton Lab
Plant Evolutionary and Ecological Genetics
We are recruiting PhD students and post-doctoral scholars in evolutionary/ecological genomics,
quantitative genetics, adaptive introgression and speciation, or conservation/landscape genomics -
if you are interested check out the 'Join Us' page and email to find out more!
quantitative genetics, adaptive introgression and speciation, or conservation/landscape genomics -
if you are interested check out the 'Join Us' page and email to find out more!
Welcome
The Hamilton Lab broadly focuses on understanding the mechanisms that contribute to local adaptation within natural and managed plant populations Our research bridges population, landscape, and functional genomics combining genomic data, environmental data, and quantitative experiments to understand the genetic basis of traits important to adaptation to climate, climate-related stresses, and disease. |
Lab News
February: We've been so thankful to have Lyne Touchette visiting from the Canadian Forest Service this past week to work with us on Fraxinus projects! Team work = dream work (with some cross-border shenanigans!) December: Exciting times at the end of the year!! Big welcome to Amanda Penn who is joining our group as a research technologist and big congratulations!! to Michelle who successfully transitioned from PhD student to PhD candidate - major milestone success!! November: Nice commentary on our recent paper in Annals of Botany from Dr. Meredith Zettlemoyer. Great summary and opportunities to ask further questions. November: Congratulations to Michelle!! who recently published a cool paper in Molecular Ecology Resources that leverages whole-genome sequencing to estimate telomere length in plants. We're excited about telomeres as a potential biomarker to assay response to abiotic or biotic stress and hopeful this might be a valuable new tool to accelerate plant breeding and conservation. November: Congratulations to former MS student Jess Lindstrom!! who recently published a chapter from her thesis in Ecology and Evolution testing the role of seed source diversity in restoration. She suggests that seed source diversity within species for seed mixes may be needed to ensure long-term resilience and evolutionary potential of restored communities, but that no matter the seed mix land-use history will play a substantial role in establishment following restoration. October: Great new feature in the Tree Seed Working Group News Bulletin on our black ash seed collections and research led by Dr. Melissa Lehrer on 'Preserving range-wide genetic diversity of Fraxinus nigra' July: So proud of this new research paper in Annals of Botany highlighting the importance of considering the role of plasticity across perennial life history stages led by awesome collaborator Mason Kulbaba and former MS student, Zeb Yoko July: The Hamilton Lab is just back from #Botany2023 where Jill presented new research from the #PopUp Poplar gardens, Santosh presented research on SDM modeling for grassland restoration, Brianna presented a poster on chloroplast genomes in our Poplar hybrid zone, Kyra presented a poster on the application of landscape genomics to grassland restoration, and Melissa and Lucia presented a joint poster using morphology of ex situ collections to quantify standing genetic variation in black ash. July: The summer is speeding along. The lab is so happy to welcome new postdoc Anthony Melton! who is joining the lab to contribute to all things ash genomics and conservation. Michelle just returned from SFTIC where she presented research on the role cytonuclear interactions play to phenotypic variation in Poplar and Alayna is just back from Evolution where she presented some of her dissertation work. Also Kudos! to Alayna for her new paper on the California walnut genome! June: Jill and Melissa presented ongoing research on conservation genetics and restoration of ash at the Emerald Ash Borer and Ash Resilience Webinar hosted by APCAW at the University of Maine. June: The Schatz Center hosted visitors from the Oak Ridge National Lab to discuss research opportunities for Populus and bioenergy. We're so excited to continue to learn from each other. May: A new collaboration describing the emerging field of Landscape Transcriptomics and its use for studying global change, led by Dr. Jason Keagy, that Jill contributed to has been featured in Penn State News. April: Schatz Center researchers, Dr. Melissa Lehrer and PhD Student, Kyra LoPiccolo's important research contributing to critical ash conservation efforts was highlighted on Arbor Day - read more about it here! January: The Schatz Center will be representing at the upcoming #PAG30 meeting. Connie Bolte will be presenting PopUp Poplar research in the Population and Conservation Genomics 2 Workshop on Monday 'Exploring the genomic architecture of porous species boundaries: implications for climatic adaptation and hybrid breeding' and Michelle Zavala-Paez will be presenting a poster Monday afternoon 'Leveraging whole genome sequencing data to quantify telomere length variation in plants'. September: So great to see Kate Volk's first chapter from her Master's thesis in print for a Special Issue on 'Approaches to the Study of Quantitative Fitness-Related Traits' in the American Journal of Botany!! Kate started this research as an undergrad at NDSU receiving a Cassel Award for undergraduate research and completed it as part of her MSc. Well done, Kate!! August: Excited to be back for fall semester with a lot of new faces! We're welcoming Dr. Connie Bolte - new postdoctoral scholar joining our NSF-funded PopUp Poplar project (and big congrats! to Connie on her recent paper just out in Tree Genetics and Genomes!), Dr. Santosh Rana - new postdoctoral scholar joining our USDA-funded project on genomics monitoring of Oregon ash, and Kyra LoPiccolo - rotating PhD student in the Plant Biology program who joins with a wealth of expertise in biotechnology of forest trees. Excited for things to come!! July: Congratulations to Lionel who has had his last official dissertation chapter published in Molecular Ecology this month examining the evolutionary history of Torrey pine using genomic data. I really love how this paper - recently featured in PSU News - uses genomic data to consider how different conservation strategies could impact a critically endangered species #ProudPI June: June has been a whirlwind of field research, field travel, conferences and more. Michelle and Nadia are in North Dakota phenotyping physiological traits in poplar for the PopUp Poplars project; Jill and Jordan (along with collaborators Sara and Dylan from The American Chestnut Foundation) have been in Vermont and Maine sampling Green Ash and American Chestnut; Maureen is back from an epic adventure through California and Oregon sampling Oregon Ash. Jill is back from the North American Forest Genetics Society meeting newly invigorated by the field! and Kate just had her first first-author paper accepted for a Special Issue in American Journal of Botany. Stay tuned for her research considering the role of environment on trait differences and the impacts that may have to restoration planning and decision-making. May: Congratulations to Kate Volk who recently defended her MS thesis this month (and is madly trying to get manuscript revisions off before starting a cool new restoration job!). Also kudos! to Lionel Di Santo who had the last of his dissertation chapters accepted (pending some minor revisions) at Molecular Ecology - so stay tuned to hear more about Torrey pine genomics and genetic rescue! ' April: Wow! Is it April already?! It's been a busy month here in the Hamilton Lab. Congratulations to Jessica Lindstrom who defended her MS thesis earlier this month!! Congratulations to incoming postdoctoral scholar Alayna Mead who was awarded a NSF Postdoctoral Fellowship and will be joining us in the near future! We're also really excited to see the lab expanding - Connie Bolte and Santosh Rana will be joining the lab as postdoctoral scholars later this summer! and we're so lucky to have great undergraduates joining us for a busy field season: Nadia Garzione and Jordan Basalyga!! Tonnes of exciting new ideas and projects on the horizon so stay tuned!! February: Jess and Kate presented their Master's research discussing sourcing seed for climate-adapted prairie reconstruction at TNC's Science Thursday this past week - along with co-advisor Marissa Ahlering #ProudPI February: New article featuring our PopUp Poplar Network from Penn State News 'Geneticists close to grasping how plant communities may adapt to climate change'. January: Check out new papers from the lab available this month! a collaboration with Stephanie Galla et al. in Molecular Ecology on the relevance of pedigrees in the conservation genomics era and a review with Acer VanWallendael and David Lowry in Current Opinions in Plant Biology celebrating 100 years of the ecotype and the new advances being made through large-scale field experiments in perennial plant systems! December: Congratulations to Dr. Lionel Di Santo!! who successfully defended his dissertation this month: 'Evolutionary and ecological processes in conservation and preservation of plant adaptive potential'. Lionel is now off to start a post-doc position at the University of Geneva with Dr. Mathias Currat! September: New video from ArbNet celebrating our collaboration! August: Check out this fantastic Twitter thread by Joe Braasch describing our recently published paper in Evolutionary Applications testing for evolutionary change in restoration. August: Hamilton Lab - it's official! The Hamilton Lab has arrived at Penn State University! We're excited to continue ongoing research and address important concerns surrounding forests and climate adaptation. |