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Aaron Lee
Graduate Student
University of Minnesota
Department of Plant and Microbial Biology
Posted 4-18-25
Talking about plant specialized metabolism and painting with natural pigments that
Alex Crum (left) made(!) at an outreach event at the Bell Museum of Natural History
I am broadly interested in convergent evolution and understanding the conditions that shaped the repeated evolution of plant form and function. I’m also interested in the curation and use of big data from natural history collections and public databases. As a fifth-year PhD candidate working with Dr. Ya Yang, I am studying functional trait evolution and phylogenomics in the buckwheat family, Polygonaceae. This family consists of approximately 1,100 species that occur in a variety of environments, from lowland moist tropical forests to temperate woodlands and wetlands, and from rocky desert outcrops and sandy flats to exposed alpine slopes and the Arctic tundra. There appears to be parallel divergences towards increasingly dry and cool environments in the family, and I am asking whether similar environmental pressures drive repeated trait evolution across the family. To measure functional traits across this geographically and ecologically diverse family, we are developing an approach using hyperspectral reflectance spectroscopy to nondestructively infer traits from herbarium specimens. We are also developing phylogenomic approaches to integrate diverse genomic data and study how whole genome duplication and reticulate evolution influence macroevolutionary patterns in this group.
I started to develop these interests as an undergraduate research student with Dr. Wendy Clement at The College of New Jersey. My first projects were centered around studying the systematics and evolution of fused organ morphologies in honeysuckles (Lonicera) and relatives. I gained a lot of experience with analyzing next-generation sequencing data in a comparative framework, and I got really excited about using sequencing data to generate and test hypotheses about the evolution of plant form and function. Dr. Clement really encouraged me to think deeply, critically, and creatively about our work, and showed me how to do collaborative team science. I also interned at an REU program at Michigan State University, where I worked with Dr. Shin-Han Shiu and (now-)Dr. Beth Moore on a project using gene family evolutionary features to classify genes of unknown function as contributing to general or specialized metabolism pathways. I’ve been grateful to be able to carry these experiences forward with me through my career, as they’ve informed both what I want to study and how I want to study them.
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Absolutely in awe of the giant leaves of Coccoloba rugosa at the Fairchild Tropical Botanic Garden
(not even the biggest leaves in the genus!)
How Aaron got interested in the botanical sciences:
Growing up in suburban New Jersey, I was surrounded by legends of my community’s golden children. Whispers of New York City apartments, overseas resort vacations, and glamorous jobs at prestigious companies and famous hospitals filled my head. I quickly fixated on becoming a medical doctor. I loved and did well in my science classes and thought that practicing medicine was just doing applied science. I even became a health sciences major at a magnet high school where I got to take dual-degree courses at a local community college! When I started as an undergraduate student, I finally decided to get clinical experience. I began working as a physician’s aide and medical scribe at an outpatient facility where I came to learn the reality of a doctor’s work. I saw how the work at my clinic was largely structured around insurance bureaucracy and efficiency, and I started to realize that I didn’t like working in such a high-stakes environment. As I spoke with more healthcare workers, I saw how medicine is applied biology as much as it is applied sociology and anthropology in trying to understand and come up with a plan compatible with each patient’s behavior, lifestyle, and temperament. I felt like the work was stressful and intense, and I didn’t feel like I could sustain an entire career of patient visits and medical procedures. Above all, I realized that I didn’t feel any urgency to heal people.
At the same time, I was taking introductory biology courses and trying to get involved in independent research. I shadowed in a few different labs before finally joining Dr. Wendy Clement’s lab, where I first got involved in botanical research as a sophomore. I started working on a project to accession and digitize herbarium specimens that had been hidden away in a storage room for decades. I loved that the herbarium specimens had a story to tell and that we had a tangible problem to solve. I also started to realize that I loved learning about the natural history of plants and the places they live in. My parents cultivated a garden that exploded with life every year. I spent a lot of time roaming the woods and skipping stones across the river, and I would notice when bluebells started poking out of the leaf litter in spring or when the kitchen overflowed with cherry tomatoes as the summer ended. Back in the lab, I began to feel like I was finally making a connection between this understanding of the world, and a potential career in botany that I didn’t know was possible for me. I’ve since been committed to botanical work and the many ways that botany can raise people up and bring people together. I get to work on interesting problems, collaborate with teams of diverse and fun people, and learn new things and problem solve every day. I have felt so lucky to join our supportive botanical community and do work that is rewarding in so many ways.
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Doing botanist things and getting up close and personal with a plant in Utah
Aaron's advice for those just starting their botanical journey:
Comparison is the thief of joy. Try lots of things (including things that scare you and/or are hard) and take time to reflect on what matches your internal goals and values. Remember that you have agency, that you should trust yourself, and that you have plenty of time to figure things out. Everything works out in the end!
Published Articles in BSA Journals:
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Lee, A. K., I. S. Gilman, M. Srivastav, A. D. Lerner, M. J. Donoghue, and W. L. Clement. 2021. Reconstructing Dipsacales phylogeny using Angiosperms353: issues and insights. American Journal of Botany 108(7): 1122–1142. doi:10.1002/ajb2.1695
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