Ana Afonso

I graduated in Biology (2011) and obtained an MSc in Ecology from the University of Coimbra (2013). In 2022 I finish my PhD thesis, "The role of polyploidy in shaping the diversity within Linum suffruticosum s.l. (Linaceae)”, in Biosciences with specialization in Ecology from the University of Coimbra and in collaboration with University of Seville. The main focus was to understand the impact of genome duplication in shaping the diversity of Linum suffruticosum s.l, the aims enable to explore the relationship between ploidy levels and reproductive strategies, namely, how polyploidy relates with floral polymorphisms (heterostyly), breeding system (self-compability and self-incompatibility) and ability to hybridize, to disentangle the relationship between polyploid and ecological niche differentiation and also to clarify the phylogenetic and phylogeographic relationships between the taxonomic entities of this group. I previous worked on topics related to reproductive ecology, plant evolution, seed and pollination ecology, comparative biology of seed traits measured in herbarium material and experiments in a common garden.