Mary T. K. Arroyo

As a botanist, my work has been in the areas of plant reproductive biology and biogeography. I have focused heavily on community-level studies of plant pollination mechanism and plant breeding systems, considering tropical to sub-Antarctic ecosystems. Through a series of studies, my research group has been able to show that plant breeding systems can be strongly influenced by other life-history properties. My work in plant biogeography has focused on several Chilean ecosystems, including forests, Mediterranean-type climate areas, and deserts. Comparative research on the floras of central Chile and California concludes that historical factors can influence and alter the expectations of evolutionary convergence. My present interests include comparisons of the predicted evolutionary responses of highly integrative morphological characters versus more simple physiological processes and conservation modeling of the rich and highly endemic flora of central Chile.