Busy as always and ever evolving the Weber lab continues to work (and play) hard. Spring of 2023 saw the arrival of a new graduate student, Leidy, and the graduation of another, Kate (MS). Lab work kept us all busy during the semester, but the real adventure came in May when grad student Keegan (with the assistance of lab mates Leidy and Sarah) set out on a journey to sample Triodanis hybrid zones across the Midwest. They visited several field stations such as Kessler Atmospheric and Ecological Field Station in OK, Hancock Biological Station in KY, Touch of Nature in IL, and other sites in AR and TN. They found hybrid zones between Triodanis perfoliata and Triodanis biflora in all five states visited, and Triodanis lamprosperma was present at several sites. Sarah stayed busy helping others with their field and lab work while also receiving the McNair scholarship and executing her own research project on the shifting phenology of Triodanis perfoliata. Taylor ditched the Triodanis field work to help another student conduct behavioral observations of poison dart frogs in Costa Rica, while there she had the great opportunity to visit the herbarium in the Museo Nacional de Costa Rica and the Universidad de Costa Rica to view pressed Triodanis specimens. Continuing the tour of Latin American herbaria, Leidy Laura visited the largest herbarium in the southwest of Colombia, the CUVC of the Universidad del Valle. She found a large specimen of Triodanis biflora. Dr. Weber got in on the global herbarium fun as well, stopping by the Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle in Paris, France during her Mediterranean fieldwork.
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