Tina J. Ayers  

 Tina Ayers

Associate Professor
Phone: 928-523-9482
Email: Tina.Ayers@nau.edu
Office: Building 21, Room 305
Dr. Ayers' website
More info: Deaver Herbarium, Teaching Greenhouse, Botany Club 

Research/teaching interests

  • plant systematic
  • biogeography
  • floristics

Academic highlights

  • PhD: University of Texas, Austin, Botany, 1986
  • BA: University of Texas, Austin, Botany, 1979

My interests are in plant systematics, biogeography, and floristics. I teach courses in all of these topics, as well, although only plant systematics is offered at the undergraduate level.

Currently, I am completing a monograph of the genus Lysipomia (Campanulaceae), a genus of about 40 species endemic to the Andean alpine tundra.

Additional projects include a molecular phylogenetic analysis of Nemacladus, in collaboration with Dr. Nancy Morin, systematics of Cyphocarpus, and systematics of Lobelia in Mexico and Central America.

All of these studies involve gathering molecular sequence data from chloroplast or nuclear genomes, as well as collecting macro- and micromorphological data. I am also interested in florisitics, especially in the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico.

My recent graduate students have completed florisitic inventories of two areas in northern Arizona/southern Utah funded by the National Park Service. For more information on these studies, visit the Deaver Herbarium site.

Selected publications

Ayers, T. 2000. Biogeography of Lysipomia: an illustration of species richness adjacent to the Huancabamba Depression. Arnoldoa 6:13-27.

Stevens, L. E. and T. J. Ayers. 2001. The Biodiversity and Distribution of Exotic Vascular Plants and Animals in the Grand Canyon Region. In: B. Tellman, Invasive Exotic Species in the Sonoran Region. Univ. of Arizona Press, Tucson.

Romero, J., T. Ayers, and C. J. Johnson. 2002. Cladistics, bruchids and host plants: evolutionary interactions in Amblycerus (Coleoptera: Bruchidae). Ann. Ent. Soc. Amer.

Koopman, M. & T. Ayers. 2004. Nectar spur evolution in the Mexican lobelias (Campanulaceae: Lobelioideae). American Journal of Botany. 95:558-562.