Sarah Tso
Graduate Student
Department of Biological Science
Florida State University
Tallahassee, FL 32306
Contact Information:
Office: CON 102
Office phone: (850) 644-6585
E-mail: tso@bio.fsu.edu
Research Interests
I am currently pursuing candidacy for my doctorate degree in biology under Alice Winn. My general research interest is the role of environmental variation in selecting for phenotypic variation in plant traits. Specifically, I am interested in the evolution of seed dispersal in plants. Seed dispersal is determined by the maternal plant, but not the seed itself. Thus, if seed dispersal is adaptive it must benefit the maternal plant. Seed dispersal has generally been thought of as an adaptation to unpredictable environmental variation or a form of bet hedging. Seed dispersal can also be an adaptation to either predictable environmental variation. It is a form of cross generational phenotypic plasticity in which the maternal plant determines the phenotype of the seeds in response to a cue in the environment that predicts the environment in which the seeds will germinate. I am interested in studying amphicarpic plants, which produce both underground seeds that are not dispersed very far and aerial seeds that can be dispersed by wind or animal vectors. These plants have somewhat directed dispersal and exhibit phenotypic plasticity in the distance in which the seeds are dispersed. Below is a picture of the amphicarpic plant Polygala polygama. It produces both aerial and underground seeds.
Courses
I am typically a teaching assistant in either Animal Diversity Lab, Experimental Biology, or Evolution.