Current Research
Charles Darwin's theory of evolution underlies the science on display in the Britton Science Rotunda and Gallery, on the fourth floor of the Library building. The exhibition Plants and Fungi: Ten Current Research Stories in this gallery features current work by Botanical Garden scientists. The showcased projects include the following:
- The cycads display emphasizes the study of the primitive characteristics of cycads to better understand modern plants on Earth and how they evolved. Click here for a five-minute audiovisual presentation.
http://www.nybg.org/scienceflash/Cycads_web.html
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The exhibit case on squashes explores the ancestry and evolutionary lineages that gave rise to modern, economically important squashes. Click here for a three-minute audiovisual presentation.
http://www.nybg.org/scienceflash/Squash_web.html
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The Brazil nuts display shows some of the striking and extremely diverse flowers that occur in that plant family and explains how the diversity in their flower form resulted from the co-evolution of the flowers and their pollinators. Click here for a four-minute audiovisual presentation. http://www.nybg.org/scienceflash/Brazil_web.html
Since Darwin, life on Earth is visualized by scientists as a tree of related life-forms, all evolving from a common ancestor. A large graphic Tree of Life, part of Plants and Fungi in the Britton Gallery, illustrates the plant and fungal sections of the Tree, where today's Garden scientists focus their research. Each individual node or "branching event" on the Tree of Life represents a now-extinct, common ancestor from which newer organisms have evolved. The tips of the branches represent currently existing organisms on Earth.
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