As part of the 'Botanical Diversity of the Indo-Pacific Region Project' I
was very fortunate to have been offered a post-graduate position at
Reading studying a group of plants that I have always had so much interest
in. Having just completed my primary degree at Trinity College Dublin I
am quite 'new' to such botanical specialisation and for the time being my
work is very much a learning process.
The project is loosely titled 'The molecular systematics of the
Nepenthaceae in the Indo-Pacific Region' and aims to investigate the
higher level relationships of this family using a combination of DNA
sequencing, morphology and cladistic techniques. To date most of my work
has basically been the collection of literature on Nepenthes and as most
of you will appreciate this is quite a daunting task and by no means
complete.
I have also built a Nepenthes frame within one of the university's heated
greenhouses (as humidity wasn't high enough previously) in which I will
grow plants to maturity so that any material used will have an available
voucher specimen (herbarium specimen).
As many of you will be aware both Matthew Jebb and Martin Cheek are
currently doing a revision of the genus Nepenthes for the Flora Malesiana
and I have been in contact with both. This work is obviously quite
important to my own as I hope to use it and some of my own morphological
studies to decide which species to prioritise. These species will include
some of the major groups of Nepenthes, as defined by morphological
discontinuities and geographical distribution, and will be sampled as
mentioned earlier. It may also be necessary to do some sampling outside
the Indo-Pacific so that these species can be placed in their proper
context but this may depend on time constraints.
Best wishes,
Joe M!
P.S.
Should anyone wish to contact me directly, my e-mail and postal address
are as follows, respectively:
J.T.Mullins@Reading.ac.uk
Department of Botany,
School of Plant Sciences,
University of Reading,
Whiteknights PO Box 221,
Reading RG6 2AS,
Berkshire,
England.
Phone: (0734) 875123 ext. 4090
Fax: (0734) 753676