Rachel Walker
Rachel Walker joined the group in 2008 after completing a Masters degree at the Natural History Museum and Imperial College, London. She is interested in using systematics to study the molecular and morphological evolution of floral traits and determining the developmental mechanisms that control them. She is developing a model for the evolution and development of the angiosperm petal spot, a potentially significant floral feature in the radiation of the angiosperms. The species being used to study this feature is the South African daisy Gorteria diffusa, because populations exhibit morphological variation in petal spot architecture. To complete a morphological characterisation, she is using phylogenetics to establish the direction of petal spot evolution and identifying and characterising regulators of cell shape and pigment synthesis genes involved in the development of the petal spot.
Contact:
- Email: Rachel.Walker@plantsci.cam.ac.uk
- Tel: 01223 (3)33934
Publications:
Brockington, S.F., Walker, R.H., Glover, B.J., Soltis, P.S. and D.E. Soltis. 2011. Complex pigment evolution in the Caryophyllales. New Phytologist. 190: 854-864.
Walker, R.H., Brodie, J., Russell, S. and L.M. Irvine. 2009. Biodiversity of Coralline Algae in the Northeastern Atlantic including Corallina caespitosa Sp. Nov. (Corallinoideae, Rhodophyta). Journal of Phycology. 45, 287-297.
