Student Research at TLU
Plant Diversity
Biology Professors at TLU have been conducting summer research with undergraduate students since 2007. Dr. Alan Lievens and Dr. Mark Gustafson have led this effort, focusing on the plant diversity at the Weston Ranch. Dr. Kevin Eddy joined the effort in 2024. They have collected and identified over 400 species. These are documented by several thousand herbarium specimens, stored in the plant biology laboratory at TLU. Students learn to collect plant specimens and create scientific voucher specimens. Each summer they have visited the Plant Resources Center at The University of Texas at Austin. Hundreds of duplicate specimens have been donated to the Plant Resources Center and other major herbaria, including the Botanical Research Institute of Texas.
Prairie Restoration
The TLU Weston Ranch team has been monitoring the results of the shrub removal. We use established methods for monitoring vegetation to observe plant diversity and abundance in the spring and summer at the experimental plots.
See these links to TLU news stories on our research:
DNA Barcoding
Identification based on morphology, or physical characteristics, is often challenging for certain plant specimens. Biology professors Dr. Stephanie Perez and Dr. Danielle Grove worked with students to use DNA sequences (known as DNA barcodes) to more accurately identify certain plant specimens stored in the TLU Herbarium. Their results have been presented at the Texas Academy of Science annual conferences. Morphological identification of plant specimens and initial project design were determined with assistance from Drs. Mark Gustafson and Alan Lievens. Funding was supported by the Weston Ranch Foundation and the National Science Foundation Improving Undergraduate STEM Education HSI SURE grant.
