Dr. Ross McCauley
By Sydney Dawes
Environmental & Plant Biology
Ohio University alum Dr. Ross McCauley received a Fulbright and will be spending next winter in the Galapagos and mainland South America researching Amaranth species.
McCauley started his work with the Amaranthaceae family for his Ph.D. dissertation with Dr. Harvey Ballard in the Environmental & Plant Biology Department. He is now an associate professor at Fort Lewis College in Durango, CO.
During his time as a Ph.D. student, McCauley investigated the species diversity and evolutionary relationships of North American and South American members of the genus Froelichia in the Amaranth family. According to McCauley, there are 5 different groups of the Amaranthaceae that are native to the Galapagos.
These groups of plants appear to demonstrate adaptive radiation, which is the rapid diversification of a lineage, usually triggered by a change in the environment.
“Beyond initial description of the species, no work had ever been performed with the group. Being endemic species to the islands, they are endangered, and more information on their basic biology would help with their conservation,” McCauley said. “I told myself that I would try to get to the islands to do that study at some time.”
The Fulbright grant is given to both students and professionals, and it aims to connect scholars internationally. According to McCauley, the application process included requirements such as letters of recommendation and an invitation from a foreign researcher collaborator, as well as a language assessment, but he also was required to give a detailed proposal of the possible research.
“While I knew the generalities of the system, I wanted to study the isolated occurrences of many of the taxa,” McCauley said. The difficulty of gaining access made him re-evaluate how he wanted to go about his research. He also wanted to include Ecuadorian students in his research, and he is able to do so working with his collaborator, Dr. Gonzalo Rivas-Torres, a professor at the Universidad San Francisco de Quito-USFQ.
Froelichia chacoensis collected in western Paraguay
McCauley plans to spend six months in Ecuador, where he will work with students to run evolutionary genetic analyses of the Amaranth plant groups, working both in the field and in the laboratory in Quito.
McCauley is no stranger to international research.
“My biggest international experience was between 2005-08 when I was a research fellow at the Centro de Investigaciones en Ecosistemas, Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México (UNAM). I participated in multiple projects in plant evolution and conservation,” he said. “During this time I was also involved in a collaborative project in plant conservation genetics with colleagues at the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil.”
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