W. John Kress
Research Botanist & Curator
Phone: 202-633-0920, 202-633-0939
Fax: 202-786-2563
E-mail Address: KRESSJ@si.edu
Postal Address
(Mail and Packages):
MRC-166/Botany
Smithsonian Institution
PO Box 37012
Washington, DC 20013-7012
Courier Address:
National Museum of Natural History
West Loading Dock
10th and Constitution Ave, NW
Washington, DC 20560-0166
Education
Graduate School: Ph.D. (Botany) 1981, Department of Botany, Duke University, Durham, NC. (Advisor: D.E. Stone),
College: B.A. (Biology) 1975, Harvard University, Cambridge, MA. (Advisor: P.B. Tomlinson).
Research Interests
Systematic Biology: systematics of Heliconia and other Zingiberales, especially with regards to reproductive biology, allozyme and molecular variation, and cladistic relationships; generic concepts in the Zingiberales; phylogeny and evolution of the monocotyledons.`Evolutionary Biology: plant reproductive biology; the evolution of breeding and pollination systems; genetic diversity and speciation in tropical angiosperms.`Conservation Biology: forest fragmentation, gene flow, and genetic variation in tropical and temperate plant species.
Recent Publications - (All Publications)
Cortes, M.C., Gowda, V., Kress, W.J., Bruna, E.M. and Uriarte, M. 2009. Characterization of 10 microsatellite markers for the understorey Amazonian herb Heliconia acuminata. Molecular Ecology Resources 9(4): 1261-1264.
Dick, C.W. and Kress, W.J. 2009. Dissecting Tropical Plant Diversity with Forest Plots and a Molecular Toolkit. Bioscience 59(9): 745-755.
Fleming, T.H., Geiselman, C. and Kress, W.J. 2009. The Evolution of Bat Pollination: a Phylogenetic Perspective. Annals of Botany 104(6): 1017-1043.
Hollingsworth, P.M., Forrest, L.L., Spouge, J.L., Hajibabaei, M., Ratnasingham, S., van der Bank, M., Chase, M.W., Cowan, R.S., Erickson, D.L., Fazekas, A.J., Graham, S.W., James, K.E., Kim, K., Kress, W.J., Schneider, H., van AlphenStahl, J., Barrett, S.C.H., van den Berg, C., Bogarin, D., Burgess, K.S., Cameron, K.M., Carine, M., Chacón, J., Clark, A., Clarkson, J.J., et al. 2009. A DNA barcode for land plants. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 106(31): 12794-12797.
Kress, W.J. and Betancur, J. 2009. A New Species of Heliconia (Heliconiaceae) from the Choco Region of Colombia. Caldasia 31(1): 99-104.
Kress, W.J., Erickson, D.L., Andrew Jones, F., Swenson, N.G., Perez, R., Sanjur, O. and Bermingham, E. 2009. Plant DNA Barcodes and a Community Phylogeny of a Tropical Forest Dynamics Plot in Panama. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 106(44): 18627-18632.
Krupnick, G.A., Kress, W.J. and Wagner, W.L. 2009. Achieving Target 2 of the Global Strategy for Plant Conservation: building a preliminary assessment of vascular plant species using data from herbarium specimens. Biodiversity and Conservation 18(6): 1459-1474.
Temeles, E.J., Koulouris, C.R., Sander, S.E. and Kress, W.J. 2009. Effect of flower shape and size on foraging performance and trade-offs in a tropical hummingbird. Ecology 90(5): 1147-1161.
Erickson, D.L., Spouge, J., Resch, A., Weigt, L.A. and Kress, W.J. 2008. DNA barcoding in land plants: developing standards to quantify and maximize success. Taxon 57(4): 1304-1316.
Kress, W.J. and Erickson, D.L. 2008. DNA barcoding - a windfall for tropical biology?. Biotropica 40(4): 405-408.
Kress, W.J. and Erickson, D.L. 2008. DNA barcodes: Genes, genomics, and bioinformatics. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 105(8): 2761-2762.
Andersson, L.L., Kress, W.J. and Maas, P.J.M. 2007. Heliconiaceae. Pp. 110 in Funk, V.A., Hollowell, T., Berry, P., Kelloff, C. and Alexander, S.N. (eds.). Checklist of the Plants of the Guiana Shield (Venezuela: Amazonas, Bolivar, Delta Amacuro; Guyana, Surinam, French Guiana). Washington D. C.: Smithsonian Institution.
Agarwal, G., Ling, H., Jacobs, D., Shirdhonkar, S., Kress, W.J., Russell, R., Bourg, N.A., Belhumer, P., Dixit, N., Feiner, S., Mahajan, D., Sunkavalli, K., Ramamoorthi, R. and White, S. 2006. First steps toward an electronic field guide for plants. Taxon 55: 597-610.
Cowan, R.S., Chase, M.W., Kress, W.J. and Savolainen, V. 2006. 300,000 species to identify: problems, progress, and prospects in DNA barcoding of land plants. Taxon 55: 611-616.
Kress, W.J. and Krupnick, G. 2006. The future of floras: new frameworks, new technologies, new uses. Taxon 55: 579-580.
Prince, L.M. and Kress, W.J. 2006. Phylogenetic relationships in the Prayer Plant Family (Marantaceae): Insight from plastid DNA sequence data. Taxon 55: 281-296.
[ TOP ]