R. Geeta
Plant Systematics and Evolution
"Biodiversity" includes the diversity of taxa and their traits.  How did this diversity come about?  Does the diversity represent a range of "solutions" that deal with the “problem” of living?  What are these problems and what are the solutions?  Answers to these questions represent understanding of the history of biodiversity.

Understanding this history entails two things: understanding the historical paths of change (what happened, when?) and understanding the underlying processes (what factors are behind the changes?).

My research is focussed on tracing the historical path of biological diversification.  My goal is to integrate understanding of multiple processes (developmental, morphogenetic, physiological) at multiple levels (molecular, cellular, organismal) to obtain a comprehensive understanding of evolving biological systems (plants).  This work involves the marriage of multiple disciplines, e.g., “traditional” botany and “modern” molecular genetics and, critically, phylogenetics (reconstruction of evolutionary relationships among taxa and using the phylogenetic framework to analyse data from many species). 

The taxonomic scope of this work includes the monocotyledons and sister taxa4; the phylogenetic and developmental studies use both molecular and morphological data.  I have studied developmental and evolutionary patterns of variation in characters at different levels of organization: morphological (leaf development)6,12,13, cellular (reproductive development)5,9,15, genomic (nuclear DNA amount)3, and molecular (Knox, a homeobox multigene family)7,10,13,14 and have suggested a phylogenetic approach to the study of morphological structures17.

My current research includes phylogenetic and morphological studies of  Dioscorea11, the genus of true yams, comparative analyses of trends in leaf evolution and correlations between genome size and reproductive development in angiosperms.

I encourage undergraduate student research in my laboratory.

Publications

17. Geeta R. "Structure trees, species trees: What they say about morphological development and evolution." Evol. Dev. 5: 609-621. 2003.

16. Geeta R. "Variation and diversification in plant evo-devo" (book review). Amer. J. Bot. 90: 1257-1261. 2003.

15. Geeta R. "The origin and maintenance of nuclear endosperms: Viewing development through a phylogenetic lens." Proc. R. Soc. B. 270: 29-35. 2003.

14. Hjortswang H.I., Larsson A.S., Bharathan G., Bozhkov P.V., Von Arnold,S., and Vahala T.  “KNOTTED1-like homeobox genes of a gymnosperm, Norway spruce, expressed during somatic embryogenesis.” Plant Physiol. Biochem. 40: 837-843. 2002.

13. Bharathan G., Goliber T., Moore C., Kessler S., Pham T. and Sinha N. "Homologies in leaf development inferred from KNOXI gene expression." Science 296: 1858-1860. 2002.

12.  Bharathan G. and Sinha N. R. "The Regulation of Compound Leaf Development."  Plant Physiol. 127: 1533-1538. 2001.

11.  Bharathan G. "Dioscoreales (yams and their allies)."  Encyclopedia of Life Sciences. Nature Publishing Group. http://www.els.net. 2001.

10.  Bharathan G., Janssen B-J., Kellogg E. A., and Sinha N. "Phylogenetic relationships and evolution of the KNOTTED class of plant homeodomain proteins." Mol. Biol. Evol. 16: 553-563. 1999.

9.  Bharathan G.  "Endosperm development in angiosperms: a phylogenetic analysis."  In R. K. Tandon and P. Singh [eds.] Biodiversity, Taxonomy, and Ecology. pp 167-182.  Scientific Publishers (India). 1999.

8.  Goliber T., Kessler S., Chen J-J., Bharathan G., and Sinha N. "Genetic, molecular, and morphological analysis of compound leaf development." Invited review in R. A. Pederson and G. Schatten [ed.]. Current Topics in Developmental Biology, Vol 43:259-290. Academic Press. 1998.

7.  Bharathan G., Janssen B.-J., Kellogg E. A., and Sinha N.  "Did homeodomain proteins duplicate before the origin of angiosperms, fungi , and metazoa?" Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. 94:13749-13753. 1997.

6.  Bharathan G.  "Does the monocot mode of leaf development characterize all monocots?"  Aliso 14:271-279. 1996.

5.  Bharathan G.  "Reproductive development and nuclear DNA content in angiosperms."  Amer. J. Bot.  83:440-451. 1996.

4.  Bharathan G. and Zimmer E. A.  "Early branching events in monocotyledons -- partial 18S ribosomal DNA sequence analysis."  In P. J. Rudall, P. J. Cribb, D. F. Cutler and C. J. Humphries [ed.], Monocotyledons -- systematics and evolution, Vol. I, 81-108. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 1995.

3.  Bharathan G., Lambert G., and Galbraith D. W.  "Nuclear DNA content of monocotyledons and related taxa."  Amer. J. Bot. 81:381-386. 1994.

2.  Sanderson M. J., Baldwin B. G., Bharathan G., Campbell C. S., von Dohlen C., Ferguson D., Porter J. M., Wojciechowski M. F., and Donoghue M. J.  "The growth of phylogenetic information, and the need for a phylogenetic data base."  Syst. Biol. 42:562-568. 1993.

1.  Sanderson M.J. and Bharathan .  "Does cladistic information affect inferences about branching rates?"  Syst. Biol. 42:1-17. 1993.
 
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R. Geeta                                                                                                                                            This page last updated on Novemner 24, 2003