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Le
Mont Jacques-Cartier, Gaspésie, Québec, 2008
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Dr. Julian R. Starr
Associate Professor
& Research Scientist
University
of Ottawa – Canadian Museum of Nature (Office: 286 Gendron or CMN)
Mailing Address
(University):
Biology Department, University of Ottawa, 30 Marie Curie, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, K1N 6N5. (Directions to office)
Tel: (613) 562-5800
ext. 6100
Fax: (613) 562-5486
E-mail: jstarr@uottawa.ca
Mailing Address
(Museum): Canadian Museum
of Nature, P.O. Box
3443, Station D, Ottawa,
Ontario
K1P
6P4, Canada
Deliveries
(Museum):
Natural Heritage
Building, 1740 chemin Pink, Gatineau, Québec,
Canada J9J 3N7
(Map to location)
Tel: (613) 566-4298
Lab:
(613)
364-4018
Fax: (613)
364-4027
E-mail: jstarr@mus-nature.ca
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Research
Interests:
I am a plant systematist at the University
of Ottawa who holds a joint position
with the Canadian
Museum of Nature.
Systematics is the science that names, classifies and determines the
evolutionary relationships of living things. My research spans the breadth of
systematic problems from the identification and circumscription of species,
to the biogeography, evolution and phylogenetics of higher-level taxa. To
resolve such diverse subjects, my laboratory uses both traditional methods
and modern molecular techniques (e.g., DNA sequencing, microsatellites,
AFLPs, etc.).
Family
Cyperaceae:
My primary research focus is on the plant family
Cyperaceae (sedges), a truly remarkable group characterized by its
exceptional diversity (ca. 5000 species), varied habitats (deserts to rain
forests), unusual cytology (2n = 12 to 112) and diverse biogeographical
patterns (e.g., Gondwanan, Bipolar). My long-term objectives in this family
are: (1) to discover the evolutionary relationships of Cyperaceae clades; (2)
to reveal historical patterns of character evolution and phytogeography within
sedges; and (3) to produce predictive classifications that can be used by
scientists, conservationists and the general public alike.
Some Current
Projects:
(All these projects offer numerous opportunities for graduate and
postdoctoral work)
(1) Sedge DNA
Barcoding: So far
we have completed a preliminary study to determine which of the proposed
chloroplast barcoding loci would be best for sedges (Starr et al. 2009; PDF on
Publications Page) and we recently published a paper in Molecular Ecology Resources that
demonstrates 100% species resolution when a regional approach to DNA
barcoding is taken for the sedges of the Canadian Arctic Archipelago (project
led by former Honour’s student Jessica LeClerc-Blain
in collaboration with Jeff Saarela and Roger Bull at the Canadian Museum of
Nature; LeClerc-Blain et
al. 2010). The most ambitious project of them all, the goal of
barcoding all 483 species of Carex
and Kobresia
recognised in the Flora of North America, North of Mexico, is still underway
(project led by my graduate student Brianna Chouinard in collaboration with
Robert Naczi at the New York Botanical Garden). Brianna has finished her
M.Sc. research and we are working hard to get it published as soon as
possible (only 14 taxa escaped her for all of FNA). I am currently searching
for students that would be interested in working on some of the taxonomic
problems that were highlighted by her research (new species?).
(2) Systematics of Cyperaceae: I
am currently finishing up a preliminary project on the phylogeny of the
family using three chloroplast (matK, ndhF, rbcL) and one nuclear
gene (ADC). The results from this analysis provide extremely good support for
relationships and afford the kind of statistical support necessary to make
lasting taxonomic changes at the tribal and generic levels in Cyperaceae. The first exciting results of this research
have just been published in Kew
Bulletin (Gilmour
et al. 2013) by my former M.Sc.
student Claire Gilmour, a new genus,
Calliscirpus C.N. Gilmour, J.R. Starr &
Naczi, for two narrow endemics to the California Floristic Province, C.
criniger (=Scirpus
criniger A. Gray or Eriophorum criniger
(A. Gray) Beetle) and a new species, C. brachythrix. For those of you
that have visited my website before you may not have realised that C. brachythrix has
been staring you in the face for years! The second plant on the top left is
the new species, and from the picture you can see the new genus is among the
most beautiful and striking to be segregated from Scirpus (the Greek prefix Calli- means ‘beautiful’). A new student of
mine, Étienne Léveillé-Bourret, has just arrived from
the Université de Montréal to
continue with our studies on the hypervariable
Cariceae+Dulicheae+Scirpeae clade (>2000
species). He will be focusing on the genus Trichophorum and the separation
of Scirpus and Eriophorum in addition to studying floral development
in the clade (a collaboration with Dr. Alex Vrijdaghs, University of Leuven). Equally interesting results on other taxonomic problems in Cyperaceae will soon be coming out from research I
conducted with Sabina Donadío, a Ph.D.
student at the University of Buenos Aires and the Darwinion
Institute who spent six months in 2012 in my laboratory on a Canadian
Government funded internship to gather molecular data for her Ph.D. Her focus
may have been on the genus Tillandsia (“Spanish moss”, Bromeliaceae), but I got her to work on a few sedgey problems too.
(3) Phylogeny and
evolution of Carex and tribe Cariceae: This
is ongoing research that I have been working on for over a decade. I recently
published a review on the subject with Bruce Ford in The Botanical Review (Starr
& Ford 2009) where we highlighted the poor representation of Asian
taxa in former phylogenies despite their often peculiar morphology and their
key phylogenetic position as sister to several major lineages in Cariceae. In April of last year, Bruce and I travelled to
Vietnam to collect these key taxa
to understanding tribal evolution on a National Geographic Research Grant
obtained by Bruce as the Principal Investigator. With our Vietnamese
colleagues, Nguyen Thi Kim Thanh
(Hanoi University of Science) and Vũ Anh Tài (Botany Vietnam
Group), and with the help of Jack Regalado
(formerly of the Missouri Botanical Garden) we were able to rediscover many
morphologically unusual species that had not been collected for 70+ years and
were only known from either their holotype or a
handful of collections. We now have years of work ahead of us trying to
understanding the anatomy, morphology, cytology and phylogenetic position of
these extraordinary oddballs and many trips to Vietnam for sure. One thing to
note if you read our review above is that despite many exciting discoveries
since the first Carex DNA sequence
phylogeny (Starr
et al. 1999), the relationships
of the major clades remain weak. Consequently, few taxonomic changes have
been made to the generic and subgeneric
classifications of the tribe. I am currently working on the problem with many
colleagues and would be happy to see the right graduate student or
postdoctoral fellow resolve it once and for all.
(4) Phylogeography and taxonomy of sedges and bipolar
species: Léon
Croizat (1952) once said that you could teach an entire course on
phytogeography using only examples from Carex
and its allies in tribe Cariceae. There are sedge
species and groups with almost every imaginable biogeographic pattern (e.g., amphiatlantic, Gondwanan,
bipolar). What forces created such extraordinary distributions? Several of my
former students have worked on the systematics and phylogeography
of two extraordinary arctic-alpine groups Carex
nardina
(Wayne Sawtell) and Carex capitata (Tamara Villaverde Hidalgo),
but there many more wonderful groups to study. So far we have travelled from
the arctic to Tierra del Fuego on these projects and who knows where next.
These are collaborations that I am conducting with my colleagues Modesto Luceño (Pablo de Olavide
University, Sevilla) and Leo Bruederle (University
of Colorado, Denver), amongst others.
And many others…
(If
you are interested in learning more, please contact me)
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