Winter Talks

Our third winter talk took place on Wednesday, 1st February and was given by Prof John Warren and Dr Jonathan Mitchley, who presented the inside story on the development and success of their unique student-centric event Botanical University Challenge.

Established in 2016 at RBG Kew, BUC is a fun, friendly event designed to bring together student botanists from across Britain and Ireland to celebrate plants and the talent and knowledge of our next generation of botanists. The talk touched on the history of BUC as well as plans for the future, such as the development of a student-led newsletter The Thymes, further development of the quiz and the potential for an international BUC.

We recorded the talk and the video is below.

Our second winter talk took place on Wednesday, 4th January; it was titled 'Tulip taxonomy and its impact on the conservation of wild species in their ancestral home, Central Asia' and was given by Brett Wilson, PhD student, Department of Plant Sciences, University of Cambridge.

Brett said "Wild tulip taxonomy is notoriously complex, yet this taxonomy underpins many other fields. One such field is conservation where species are often the focus of funding, action, and evaluation. In the past four years we have worked towards a more up-to-date phylogenetic based understanding of the diversity in the genus Tulipa, exploring not only species concepts but also the evolutionary history of this flower. Using this new taxonomic backbone we have been able to use climate modelling to assess the threat of climate change and produced Red List reports detailing the threatened status of many wild tulips. Overall, providing an evidence-base for the conservation of this flower in its most diverse region, Central Asia".

We recorded Brett's talk and the video is below.

Our first online Winter Talk was given by Hannah Hall, PhD student at the University of Reading, on Wednesday 7th December 2022. Hannah's subject was The Evolution and Taxonomy of Hyacinthinae - video below.