J Esteban Jiménez

Unido: 25.abr.2019 Última actividad: 27.mar.2024

Botanist 🇨🇷 | Central American Floristics | General botanist | Systematics of Peperomia and Aristolochia in Neotropics | Ph.D. student at University of Florida in http://majurelab.org

Since 2009, I started as a plant collector, mainly in Costa Rica. I support the University of Costa Rica herbarium (USJ) as an associate researcher. Currently, I am working on Systematics of Peperomia. The taxonomy and evolutionary relationships within this diverse plant group are still poorly understood. There are lineages that based on limited data across Peperomia are not morphologically diagnosable and hundreds of species have yet to be placed in contemporaneous infrageneric classifications. This lack of taxonomic and phylogenetic resolution greatly hinders the ability to understand the evolution of this hyperdiverse clade of mostly epiphytes. I am working on:
1) Build a phylogenetic hypothesis with genomic DNA sequence data, focusing on those low-supported clades, to test the evolution of traits and habits in this megadiverse genus.
2) Generate monographs, taxonomic treatments, and describing new species of Peperomia for a better understanding of their biodiversity.
3) Examine the spatial and temporal context of the evolutionary history of Peperomia in Neotropics.

I am seeking funding to carry out fieldwork all summers (may-ago) starting next year.

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