Botany 2026 + Updates

From July 31^st to August 6^th, the Bulbous Lab was in Tucson, AZ for the annual Botanical Society of America conference, Botany. This annual event is a highlight of the year, bringing together 1000+ scientists from all career stages and backgrounds.

In addition to enjoying our time in the Sonoran Desert, the Bulbous Lab presented research we have all been working on over the past year. Boniface put together a poster on the steps we have been taking (and will be taking in the future) to better improve the Ledebouriinae phylogeny, with a focus on the predominantly southern African clade of Ledebouria. Both Goodnews and Morgan, who gave oral presentations in the Ecology session, presented work centered around quantifying the amount niche overlap among bulbous lineages. Goodnews, who gave his first oral presentation (*applause*), presented work on investigating niche conservatism among the many independent bulbous lineages, and Morgan presented findings on the amount of niche overlap between bulbous species and their closest non-bulbous relatives. Ongoing work on establishing the Asparagaceae phylogeny, which has been fraught with uncertainty, was presented by Dr. Cody during the Phylogenomics session.

Four images from a conference: two show speakers presenting slides to an audience, one shows a man standing by a research poster, and one shows another speaker at a podium.

Side-by-side portraits: Left, a man outdoors by water and buildings; right, a woman outdoors with greenery in background. Text labels read “James Davis” and “Dr. Keyi Feng.”.

With Botany behind us, the Bulbous Lab is now preparing for the 26-27 academic year. Excitingly, we will have new members starting in Fall 2026! James Davis, a graduate from Oklahoma State University, will be joining the Master’s program. James will focus on understanding resource dynamics within bulbous plants across a selection of species. Dr. Keyi Feng, who received her Ph.D. from the University of Michigan, will be joining us as a postdoctoral researcher. Dr. Feng will bring her extensive knowledge of plant genomics to the Bulbous Lab to better understand plant evolution and phylogeny; we will slowly convince her that the Asparagaceae is the best plant group out there. ;-)

Stay tuned for more updates in the Fall semester! We have a number of awesome projects lined up for the upcoming academic year, and no, I’m not biased at all.

Signing off,
Dr. Cody Coyotee Howard, on behalf of the Bulbous Lab