People

Petr Bureš is an Associate Professor in Botany at Masaryk University. He is Head of the Plant Biosystematics Working Group. His research is focused on various aspects of plant evolution such as interspecific hybridization, evolution of holocentric chromosomes (not only in plants), adaptive evolution of genome size, evolutionary consequences of centromere drive. His scientific interests include also classical plant taxonomy - especially the genera Cirsium and Eleocharis. Among the questions underlying his research belong: Why some species hybridize very frequently in nature, while others never or rarely (although they have plenty of opportunities to hybridize)? Does natural interspecific hybridization have any impact on the traits of frequently hybridizing species? Was the increased resistance of the holocentric chromosomes to the clastogenic effects of radiation the reason why organisms with this type of chromosomes were among the first colonizers of land half a billion years ago? Can the competition of homologous chromosomes for survival during female gametogenesis affect the extreme divergence in the size of chromosomes and genomes of angiosperms? He is the author or co-author of more than 90 scientific papers or book-chapters. He supervised more than 65 bachelor, master, and doctoral students. He is a guarantor of the Master study program Botany in Masaryk University. He has a basic lecture on the phylogeny and diversity of land plants but he also has lectures on the history of biological sciences or information sources in botany and leads a biosystematic seminar.

Tammy Elliott originally studied agriculture in her home province of Saskatchewan in Canada. After several years of travelling and working for provincial governments as an agrologist managing pastures, she completed a Master's degree at the University of British Columbia, focussing on muskox grazing in the Canadian High Arctic - a region with a relatively high diversity of sedges. She then incorporated studies of sedge co-occurrence using community phylogenetic approaches into her doctoral work at McGill University in Montreal. Her postdoctoral work to date has included a major revision of the southern African Schoenus, including the description of 20 new species to science. During her time in South Africa, she developed an interest in genome size and chromosome evolution in sedges, and more generally angiosperms, which she plans to investigate further with the Plant Biosystematics working group.

Ondřej Knápek studied botany at the Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science, Masaryk University. He works as a technician. He is interested in plants cultivation, aquaristic and oldtimers, especially motorcycles.

Alexandra Šilerová earned her bachelor’s and master’s degree in Agroecology at Mendel Univerzity Brno, Faculty of AgriSciences. She wrote both her theses in close cooperation with The Institute of System Biology and Ecology AS CR. In her bachelor´s thesis, she studied leaf senescence of European beech by fluorescence imaging technique. Her master´s thesis was on CO2 assimilation of selected tree species in response to dynamic light régime. She has been working in Plant Biosystematics Group as a research assistant in the laboratory of flow cytometry since 2011.

Pavel Veselý studied teacher training in mathematics and biology at Faculty of Science of Masaryk University and he continiued in Ph.D. studies at the Department of Botany and Zoology, Faculty of Science. In 2015, he defended his dissertation named: “Have the largest plant genomes evolved as an adaptation to geophytic strategy?”. He takes a part in solutions, interpretations and analyses of actual topics. However, the geophyte questions remain his heart topic. He leads a practical lecture Evolutionary Plant Morphology and excursion course Protected Areas of Brno and Surroundings 1 and 2. He likes travelling to Mediterranean and limestone areas. In his free time, he is also an enthusiastic gardener and grower of ornamental and crop plants.

Ashini Dias completed her BSc degree majoring in Botany at the University of Kelaniya, Sri Lanka. She obtained her MPhil degree from The University of Hong Kong. Her undergraduate and Master research focused on plant reproductive biology. She is currently pursuing her PhD at Masaryk, and is studying the Self-compatibility and Loss of Heterozygosity in Cirsium (Asteraceae).

Klára Plačková studied bachelor’s degree programme Ecological and Evolutionary Biology at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University in Brno. During this study she researched the differences in response of plants with monocentric and holocentric chromosomes to UV-radiation. Currently, she continues with chromosomes in master’s degree programme Botany. In her Master thesis, she deals with relation between chromosome and centromere size in bimodal karyotype of plants (subfamily Agavoideae).

Lucie Kozielová is a student of Biology and Chemistry in education at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University. She is currently working on a methodical bachelor's thesis which deals with testing new buffers for flow cytometry.

Hana Hřebíčková is a student of the bachelor study program Ecological and evolutionary biology at the Faculty of Science, Masaryk University. In her bachelor thesis she deals with the comparison of the size and density of stomata of monoploid and polyploid plants of Ginkgo biloba.

Vít Kuchař graduated with bachelor’s degree by completing the field of Ecological and Evolutionary Biology at Masaryk University and consequently began his Master‘s degree in Botany. In his master‘s thesis he deals with the size of plant cells, especially the relationship between the size of stomata and the plants growth in dry conditions.

Kristýna Veselá with a bachelor´s degree in Chemistry of Conservation and Restauration at Faculty of Science, Masaryk Univerzity Brno, defended her thesis on The old limekilns in northwest region of Brno defended in 2010, master´s degree in Pharmacy at University of veterinary and pharmaceutical sciences Brno, where she defended her diploma with thesis Comparative anatomy of chosen species of Solanaceae family in 2013. In 2016 she started her doctoral studies at Faculty of Science at Masaryk Univerzity Brno at the Department of Botany and Zoology (field Botany) and topic of her dissertation is Nucleotype effect and its eco-physiological consequences is focusing on genome size, size and density of different cell types and their relationship with ecological characteristics of species.