Nicole Mitidieri-Rivera

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About me

Evolutionary botanist from the Global South interested in the systematics, biogeography, and evolutionary history of Neotropical epiphytic, hemiepiphytic, and arboreal plants. In my PhD under Dr. Kenneth Sytsma's supervision at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, I study the evolution of floral characters in Moraceae and the systematics/hybridization/taxonomy of Ficus sect. Americanae from phylogenetic and geometric morphometric approaches..

Contact

mitidieririv[at]wisc.edu

Systematics of Ficus sect. Americanae

The advent of high-throughput sequencing has not only bolstered the phylogenetic framework for Ficus L. but has also breathed new life into the study of macroevolutionary processes, including diversification, biogeography, and trait evolution. Nonetheless, its largest subgenus Spherosuke continues to be taxonomically underrepresented in most phylogenies, despite containing two of the highest speciation rates in Moraceae. While low-copy nuclear genes provide strong support for the monophyly of subgen. Spherosuke, the phylogenetic relationships at the infrageneric level still lack resolution. Many of these unresolved relationships stem from limited taxon sampling, especially in the speciose Neotropical Ficus sect. Americanae, where less than 60% of the ~150 species have been sequenced. In my research, we aim to reconstruct a phylogenetic hypothesis, representing the first, fully resolved, comprehensive tree for this clade, to test the monophyly of the “species complexes” in F. sect. Americanae.

Nomenclatural review of Neotropical Ficus sect. Americanae

Continuous revisions in nomenclature are crucial for maximally informative and stable classification systems as well as accurate assessments of biodiversity. As a precursor to a phylogenetic-based, taxonomic monograph of Neotropical Ficus sect. Americanae (Moraceae), a comprehensive nomenclatural index of all published names in the section from the Neotropics was published in Phytotaxa.

Character evolution and diversification in Moraceae

If we replayed the tape of life, would large lineages evolve into the same dazzling diversity observed today? While the macroevolutionary drivers underlying plant diversification have been investigated for some large genera, many clades remain understudied. Ficus L., with 876 species, one of the largest and most ecologically important genera in Moraceae, is renowned for its iconic inflorescence, intricate pollination mutualism and broad ecological adaptability. We used a well-sampled, dated phylogenomic backbone of Moraceae to investigate diversification patterns and their associated drivers in Ficus and allied genera using maximum-likelihood and Bayesian process-based methods. We assembled a morphological matrix of 508 species in Moraceae to investigate patterns of trait evolution based on stochastic mapping.