Welcome to the Ashman Lab
 Oregon coast range |  California headlands |  Local adaptation and hybridization |  California serpentine seeps |  Coexistence in flowering communities |  Inner city vacant lots |  Urban pollination ecology |
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 Invaders & novel interactions |  Hawaiian dry forests |  Pollination networks |
Department of Biological Sciences
University of Pittsburgh
Pittsburgh PA 15260-3929
‹TEL: lab: 412-624-0985
office: 412-624-0984
​‹MAIL: tia1 'at' pitt.edu
The Ashman Lab
We study plant evolutionary ecology:
Species interactions & genomic contributors to
plant adaptation & biodiversity
2024​
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2 Postdoc positions available! full info on right -->
New NSF grant is funded!--collaboration with Martin Turcotte --Critically evaluating the ecological and functional drivers of polyploid establishment using the framework of Modern Coexistence Theory
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New papers from the lab --congrats! Dr Iriart: Rhizobial variation, more than plant variation, mediates plant symbiotic and fitness responses to herbicide stress
Dr Cullen: Hyperaccumulation of nickel but not selenium drives floral microbiome differentiation: A study with six species of Brassicaceae
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Aiden Stanley wins Stanton C. Crawford Award for excellence in teaching!
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Tia-Lynn receives Fulbright Senior Scholar Award to study pollination change in Spain!
New collaborative NSF grant is funded! BII: Polyploidy: Integration Across Scales and Biological Systems
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Hannah & Amber win Mellon fellowships!
Nevin starts new Postdoc at the USDA Pollination lab in UT
Elizabeth Lawrence joins as lab manager!
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2023
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Our Polyploidy & Flower Color work featured in two articles!
Stress Responders Science August 25, 2023
Weird Laws of Life New Scientist July 15, 2023
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0262407923012861
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Congratulations to Dr. Nevin Cullen!!
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2022
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Tia-Lynn wins Humboldt Research Award
Hannah Assour joins the lab to work with Tia-Lynn and Martin Turcotte, welcome!
Our POLLEN VIROME paper is published! Fetters, A.M., P. G. Cantalupo, N. Wei, M. T. Sáenz Robles, J.D. Stephens, A. Stanley, J.M. Pipas, and T-L Ashman. 2022. Plant traits and proximity to human disturbance shape the pollen virome of wild plants Nature Comms 13: 523 https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-022-28143-9:
Check out the write up:
2021
Exciting new papers: Pollination contributes to the maintenance of flowering plant diversity (Nature 597, 688–692)
Widespread vulnerability of plant seed production to pollinator declines (Science Advances 7: 42•DOI: 10.1126/sciadv.abd3524 )
Dr. Nathalia Streher joins lab to work with Tia-Lynn and Itay Mayrose on NSF-BSF funded project to study polyploidy and the pollination niche using herbaria and
network data. Welcome!
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Dr. Thomas Anneberg is awarded NSF PDF and joins lab to work with Tia-Lynn and Martin Turcotte on polyploidy using duckweeds. Welcome!
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Tia-Lynn receives EO Wilson Award from The Society of American Naturalists
Tia-Lynn receives the Provost's Outstanding Mentor Award from DSA&S.
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Andrea defends her PhD on the pollen virome & joins OSU as a NSF PDF --Congrats Dr Fetters!!
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Sad to say we bid goodbye to Dr. Serch Ramos! But happy that his paper on the effects of herbicide dicamba on floral, vegetative, and lifetime traits was published in Science of the Total Environment!
2020
Matt publishes provocative work on the response of floral pigmentation to 75 years of global change in ozone and temperature in Current Biology 30:4425-4431
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Amber Stanley joins the lab to study urbanization effects on plant reproduction--and wins research awards from Sigma Xi, BSA and MAHerbaria--go Amber!
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Dr. Anne Sternberger joins lab in May to work with Tia-Lynn and Aaron Liston on NSF funded project on strawberry sex chromosome evolution.
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The lab published a fantastic pair of polyploidy papers:
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Wei, N. Z. Du, A. Liston and T-L. Ashman. Genetic lineage-dependent genome duplication effects on functional traits and fitness in synthetic polyploid Fragaria. American Journal of Botany 107(1): 1–11
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Forrester, N.J. and T-L Ashman. Synthetic autotetraploids show that polyploidy alters the mutualism interface of legume-rhizobia interactions in Medicago sativa subsp. caerulea. American Journal of Botany https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1375
2019
Tia-Lynn & Aaron Liston receive funding to understand sex chromosome evolution
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Dr. Sergio Ramos to join lab as PEEP fellow working on eco-evo feedbacks and rapid evolution with Tia-Lynn and Martin Turcotte.
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Gradstudent Nevin Cullen receives Sigma Xi funds to support his research into floral microbiome of Streptanthus species!
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HMB student Veronica Iriart joins lab as graduate student studying herbicide drift effect on plant communities, the Ashman lab is excited to have you Vero!
Andrea receives Mellon Fellowship!
Avery and Tia-Lynn publish on pollinator learning of flower microbes ! https://academic.oup.com/beheco/advance-article-abstract/doi/10.1093/beheco/arz011/5308014
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Members of the Ashman and Hatfull labs identify novel phages in microbes from flowers https://mra.asm.org/content/8/1/e01468-18.abstract
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2018
Na & Nikki publish papers on plasticity in polyploids and mutualism in the city!
https://academic.oup.com/jue/article/4/1/juy021/5183403
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International consortium of pollination biologists lead by Tia-Lynn & Tiffany Knight publish the world's largest data set on pollen limitation in Nature Scientific Data!
https://www.nature.com/articles/sdata2018249
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Our paper on JUMPING SEX GENES in strawberry is published in PLOS Biology and featured in Science and on #TWiEVO podcasts
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Undergrads Abby & Nick are awarded PASG grants to conduct their research!
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The Ashman lab welcomes Nevin Cullen and Veronica Iriart as new graduate students!
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We received funding to collaborate with Gina Baucom on the eco-evolutionary dynamics of pesticide use.
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Paper on polyploidy and range published with Matt & former undergrad Hailey!
Andrea receives funding from PLE, BSA and PAS to study plant-pollinator-virus interactions!
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Na's paper showing sexual dimorphism in wild strawberry microbiomes is published!
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Nikki receives funding from ASN ad SSE to pursue the effects of polyploidy on rhizobia-plant interactions!
2017
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Nikki's paper on the direct effects of polyploidy on Legume-rhizobial mutualism is published in AOB!
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Tia-Lynn & Jim Pipas receive funding from The Charles E Kaufman Foundation to study the pollen virome!
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Anna, Andrea and Tia-Lynn publish a New Phytologist view point paper on the unintended consequences of pollinator gardens for native urban biodiversity.
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Na and Tia-Lynn (with collaborators Jacob Tennessen and Aaron Liston) publish New Phytologist paper on the evolution of a decaploid!
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Dr. Jess D. Stephens joins the lab.
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Nikki receives PEP ESA travel award.
Andrea receives PA Academy of Science Research Award.
Maria wins spot in EDANAME workshop & ASN young scientist symposium.
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PEEP fellows Dr. Maria Rebolleda-Gomez and Dr. Avery Russell join the lab to expand studies of microbes, plants, and bee behavior to new frontiers.
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Dr. Du arrives from Taizhu University as a visiting scholar to study the physiological effects of polyploidy.
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Tia-Lynn is receives a Helmholtz International Fellow Award for research in Germany
2016
Tia-Lynn is promoted to Distinguished Professor
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Anna and Tia-Lynn receive funding from MSCI to study Pollination in the city: Designing urban pollinator gardens that are resilient to air pollution.
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Gerardo's paper 'Invasion status and phylogenetic relatedness predict cost of heterospecific pollen receipt: implications for native biodiversity decline' published in Journal of Ecology!
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Sex chromosome work published in New Phytologist--Homomorphic ZW chromosomes in a wild strawberry show distinctive recombination heterogeneity but a small sex-determining region.
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Nikki is awarded EDEN and MICROMORPH grants to study plant-rhizobial interactions. Awesome!
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2015
Nikki is awarded Rosemary Grant Graduate Student Research Award from the Society for the Study of Evolution. AWESOME!
Anna Johnson is awarded a 2015 NSF Postdoc Fellowship to work with us to study how species compositional shifts over 100 years affect Hawaiian pollen transport networks! We are truly thrilled!!
Nikki receives coveted NSF Predoctoral Fellowship! Congratulations!!
And former undergrad Bella Salamone receives Honorable mention!
Matt's work on Flower color featured in Scientific American! See it here: http://www.scientificamerican.com/
Raj's paper on discordance among genomes in the octoploid clade of Fragaria published in AJB! See it here: http://www.amjbot.org/
Matt Koski's paper on "Floral pigmentaion patterns provide an example of Gloger's rule in plants" has been published in Nature Plants. Congratulations Matt!
Paper exploring the octoploid genome published in Genome Biol. Evol. !
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Postdoctoral position in
Species interactions, climate change or polyploidy
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Postdoctoral position the ecological effects of plant response to anthropogenic change and/or polyploidy.
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The postdoc will assess 1) consequences of plant polyploidy on biotic interactions or 2) climate adaptation effects species interactions (microbes, pollinators).
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Responsibilities include setting up experimental populations, collection and analysis of data on species interactions, including community composition and interaction networks, and characterizing fitness effects, and the preparation of manuscripts for publication.
Position affords opportunities for undergraduate mentoring, scientific outreach, and the design and implementation of allied projects tailored to the skills and interests of the postdoc.
An ideal candidate has the following characteristics: 1) is evolutionary-minded, creative and a collaborative spirit, 2) background in community ecology, population biology or microbial or plant biology, 3) experience with insect identification, techniques for characterizing microbial communities and/or willingness to expand expertise, 4) strong statistical and writing skills.
TO APPLY: Please send a CV and a cover letter describing your experience and interests to tia1@pitt.edu along with the names and contact information for three referees. Review of applications will commence immediately and continue until filled.
