Ph.D. Systematic botany and ethnobotany, Cornell University, 1999.
B.Sc. Biology with concentration in botany, Cornell University, 1977.

Awards:

National Science Foundation Grant. “Evolution of clonally-propagated crops under human influence, the example of the Andean tuber crop Oxalis tuberosa,” with Dr. Bryan Epperson (Michigan State University) as statistical consultant (August 2004-July 2006).

Council Member – Society of Economic Botany: elected by membership for three year term (June 2004-June 2007).

E. H. Fulling Award for the best contributed oral paper at the annual meeting of the Society for Economic Botany by a junior presenter (with Ph.D. no more than five years). June 2003.

A. W. Mellon Foundation Graduate Systematics Training Program Fellowship, Cornell University, 1992-1996 & 1997-1999.

National Science Foundation Doctoral Dissertation Improvement Grant, 1996-1998.

J. W. Fulbright Travel Grant for Education and Research in Peru, 1996-1997.

Foreign Language and Area Studies Fellowships from US Department of Education, 1993 & 1995.

Gamma Sigma Delta, honor society of agriculture, 1995.

Additional funding for dissertation research travel from the Cornell Graduate School and L.H. Bailey Hortorium Moore and Mellon Funds.

Research Interests:

Systematics, genetic diversity, and ethnobotany of "oca", Oxalis tuberosa Molina, and its allies; polyploidy; crop evolution; Andean root and tuber crops; conservation of crop genetic diversity.

Current Research:

The tuber crop "oca", Oxalis tuberosa, is one of the many cultigens that were domesticated in the Andean region long before Inca times. It is cultivated along with other Andean tuber crops belonging to four unrelated families in the highest agricultural zones (between about 2800 and 4100 meters elevation), primarily by traditional Quechua and Aymara agriculturists. My research on O. tuberosa involves the three interrelated aspects of systematics, genetic diversity, and ethnobotany. The systematic aspects center on the origins of domestication and polyploidy of the crop. Because oca is reported to be octoploid (2n = 8x = 64), the search for its origins includes not only the identification of the wild progenitor that was domesticated to become the cultivated crop, but also the origins of polyploidy: whether the polyploid arose in a single or in multiple events, whether its genomes were contributed by a single progenitor species or by more than one progenitor species or populations, whether the formation of the octoploid occurred before or after domestication, etc. These systematic questions are being explored in the context of the phylogenetic relationships of its close relatives, and some good candidates as the possible genome donors have been identified. The genetic diversity aspects include plans for investigation of the distribution and dynamics of the variation in cultivated oca and its wild relatives with the goal of providing information to help plan both in-situ and ex-situ conservation efforts. The ethnobotanical aspects focus on the human influence on the evolution of the crop, particularly the effects of traditional agricultural management and other social factors on the maintenance or loss of genetic diversity in cultivated oca.

This research is made possible by the generosity of a grant from Abbott Laboratories to The Field Museum.

Selected publications:

Zeder, Melinda A., Dan Bradley, Eve Emshwiller, and Bruce Smith (editors). In press. Documenting Domestication: New Genetic and Archaeological Paradigms. University of California Press.

Zeder, Melinda A., Dan Bradley, Eve Emshwiller, Bruce Smith. In press. Chapter 1: Documenting domestication: Bringing together plants, animals, archaeology, and genetics.

Emshwiller, Eve. In press. Chapter 8: Genetic data and plant domestication.

Emshwiller, Eve. In press. Chapter 12: Origins of polyploid crops: the example of the octoploid tuber crop Oxalis tuberosa.

Emshwiller, Eve. In press. Evolution and conservation of clonally-propagated crops: insights from AFLP data and folk taxonomy of the Andean tuber “oca,” Oxalis tuberosa. In: T. Motley, N. Zerega, and H. Cross (eds.), Darwin’s Harvest: New Approaches to the Origins, Evolution, and Conservation of Crops, Colombia University Press.

Emshwiller, Eve. In press. Oxalidaceae In: O. Hokche (ed.), Nuevo Catálogo de la Flora de Venezuela. Fundación Instituto Botánico de Venezuela, Caracas.

Emshwiller, Eve and Stephan G. Beck. In press. Oxalidaceae. In: P. M. Jørgensen et al. (eds), Catálogo de las Plantas Vasculares de Bolivia. Missouri Botanical Garden Press.


Emshwiller, Eve and Jeff J. Doyle. 2002. Origins of domestication and polyploidy in oca (Oxalis tuberosa: Oxalidaceae). 2. Chloroplast-expressed glutamine synthetase data. American Journal of Botany. 89(7):1042-1056. Link to PDF

Emshwiller, Eve. 2002. Ploidy levels among species of the "Oxalis tuberosa alliance" as inferred by flow cytometry. Annals of Botany. 89(6): 741-753. Link to PDF

Emshwiller, Eve. 2002. Biogeography of the "Oxalis tuberosa alliance." In K. R. Young, C. Ulloa Ulloa, J. L. Luteyn, and S. Knapp (eds. of special issue: Plant evolution and endemism in Andean South America), Botanical Review. 68(1): 128-152. Link to PDF

Emshwiller, Eve and Jeff J. Doyle. 1999. Chloroplast-expressed glutamine synthetase (ncpGS): potential utility for phylogenetic studies with an example from Oxalis (Oxalidaceae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 12(3): 310-319. Link to PDF

Emshwiller, Eve and Jeff J. Doyle. 1998. Origins of domestication and polyploidy in oca (Oxalis tuberosa: Oxalidaceae): nrDNA ITS data. American Journal of Botany 85(7): 975-985. Link to PDF

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