Profile
Educational Background
B.S., Botany, University of Oklahoma, 2011
M.S., Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, 2014
Ph.D, Plant Biology, University of Oklahoma, 2017
Profile/About Me
The sunflower family (Asteraceae) is the largest plant family with 25,000-30,000 species. Its success has been attributed to the evolution of the capitulum, a compact inflorescence that appears and functions as a solitary flower but is comprised of many smaller individual florets. The primary focus of our lab is on understanding how changes in developmental programs (i.e. stem cell maintenance, organ identity, regulation of flowering) have contributed to the evolution of the Asteraceae capitulum. We are actively developing new model systems in the family to address these questions and our work spans biological fields; from genetics/molecular biology to comparative genomics and species diversity.
Selected Publications
Jones, Daniel S., Reid Selby, Pedro Jimenez-Sandoval, Andrew C. Willoughby, Emily Yaklich, Anna T. DiBattista, Jakub Baczynski et al. "Floral innovation through modifications in stem cell peptide signaling." bioRxiv (2025): 2025-06.
Gurung, V., Muñoz-Gómez, S. and Jones, D.S., 2024. Putting heads together: Developmental genetics of the Asteraceae capitulum. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 81, p.102589. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2024.102589
Moore?Pollard, E.R., Jones, D.S. and Mandel, J.R., 2024. Compositae?ParaLoss?1272: A complementary sunflower?specific probe set reduces paralogs in phylogenomic analyses of complex systems. Applications in Plant Sciences, p.e11568. https://doi.org/10.1002/aps3.11568
Selby, R. and Jones, D.S., 2023. Complex peptide hormone signaling in plant stem cells. Current Opinion in Plant Biology, 75, p.102442. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pbi.2023.102442
Jones, D.S., John, A., VanDerMolen, K.R. and Nimchuk, Z.L., 2021. CLAVATA signaling ensures reproductive development in plants across thermal environments. Current Biology, 31(1), pp.220-227. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2020.10.008
Rodriguez-Leal, D., Xu, C., Kwon, C.T., Soyars, C., Demesa-Arevalo, E., Man, J., Liu, L., Lemmon, Z.H., Jones, D.S., Van Eck, J. and Jackson, D.P., 2019. Evolution of buffering in a genetic circuit controlling plant stem cell proliferation. Nature genetics, 51(5), p.786. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41588-019-0389-8