Aquatic flowering plants are notoriously difficult to identify because their morphology varies greatly with differing water levels and other factors of the environment. Graduate student Thomas Philbrick, under the supervision of faculty advisor Dr. Gregory Anderson at the Univesity of Connecticut, is studying the effects of growth conditions on the morphology of 17 North American species of the aquatic angiosperm genus Callitriche. He is supplementing this morphological study with biochemical analyses of variation in chloroplast DNA, in order to identify reliable markers of genetic divergence among species and construct a robust taxonomy for the group. The results of his study will lead to improved classification of these plants and better understanding of the evolutionary history of divergence among the species.
