Hiking the Himalayas for DNA

The Himalayas span at least five nations in Asia and contain the highest peaks in the world, including Mount Everest. They are home to high-altitude plants, many threatened with extinction from climate change and human activities. Yet because many species grow in hard-to-reach remote peaks and valleys across several countries, we still don’t have a clear idea of how many are there. We may lose them before they are even discovered.

Among these is the radially flowered honeysuckle plant group, Lonicera section Isoxylosteum. Ph.D. candidate Mansa Srivastav will share what it was like collecting plant DNA on foot across the Himalayas and what her efforts tell us about how many radially flowered honeysuckles exist and how their distribution is affected by climate and geological changes that occurred millions of years ago.