The VanWallendael lab is starting up at North Carolina State University in January 2024! We are housed in the Horticulture building on main campus within the Weed Science program. We are part of both the Horticulture and Crop and Soil Science Departments. Our lab's focus is on the intersection between evolutionary genetics and weed science. We collaborate widely to use evolutionary concepts to understand weed management, and to use weeds and invasive species as empirical evolutionary models. We study many aspects of weed science, using ecology, evolution, and genetics to understand large-scale ecological patterns and microevolutionary processes.

Artifical selection over many years allowed humans to domesticate crops from wild progenitors. However, this process did not always eradicate the ancestors of modern crops. We study crop plants that have closely-related weedy counterparts as a way to study the processes of domestication and weediness. A focal species for the lab is proso millet Panicum miliaceum, a plant that grows both as a drought-tolerant crop and an invasive weed in many parts of the world. We are uncovering historical diversification in this crop through population genetics and uncovering mechanisms of drought tolerance through comparative genomics.

Since they face extraordinary selection pressures from control efforts, weeds provide some of the best examples of rapid evolution in multicellular organisms. A major focus of the lab is understanding the genetic changes that occur in weed populations, and using these to both predict emerging problem weeds and track rapid evolution in real-time. We will be establishing sites and recruiting collaborators continuously throughout this project.

Plant-fungal relationships in switchgrass: Fungal disease is a major driver of eco-evolutionary patterns in plants. Pathogen success is influenced by the host's genetics, the climate, and even by the presence of other fungi already inhabiting the plant. In switchgrass, we find that different genetic variants are associated with disease in northern versus southern locations. This might be influenced by the complex leaf fungal community, which has its own ecology that changes over the course of the season in a process of ecological succession.

Invasion genetics in knotweed: One of the fundamental tenets of Darwinian evolution is that genetic diversity is essential for adaptation. However, in many cases populations can be quite successful with low diversity. Japanese knotweed is one of the most striking examples of this - the problematic invasive plant spreads mostly asexually, with massive populations of clones in temperate regions worldwide. We found that in North America there may be more genetic diversity than previously assumed, mainly from hybridization with another invasive knotweed. However, this has not resulted in local adaptation across the new range.

All publications:Google Scholar

We are hiring a postdoc! The postdoc will have the opportunity to focus on the evolution of weedy traits in crop-related weeds, as well as monitoring genomic changes in wild weed and invasive species populations. Candidates should have interests related to these topics, but will have flexibility to investigate lines of inquiry specific to their research goals. Please submit a cover letter/personal statement, CV, and contact info for 3 references by May 21 (even if it says a different date on the jobs site). Further details and the submission portal can be found on the NCSU jobs website: (NCSU Jobs)

At NCSU I am teaching Weed Biology (CS 716)each spring.

Dr. Acer VanWallendael can be contacted at: avanwal@ncsu.edu
Lab code can be found on Github