Newfeed

New summer interns!

Stacey Dewitt Smith — Mon, 08 Jun 2026 19:20:56 +0000

New summer interns! Stacey Dewitt Smith Mon, 06/08/2026 - 13:20

This summer, we are pleased host an intern from the highly competitive SMART program. Kadance joins us from Fort Valley State University in Georgia and will be leading the effort to catalog flower and fruit pigments in the greenhouses. Kamry Yazzie from Northern Arizona University and Helana Joe from the Southwestern Indian Polytechnic Institute will be working with us on classroom outreach to the CU Upward Bound students and collaborating on our tomatillo defense project.

It's going to be a great summer!

We are thrilled to have three new interns this summer, welcome Kamry, Kadance and Helana!

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Malia hits the jackpot in Nevada!

Stacey Dewitt Smith — Sat, 30 May 2026 03:37:56 +0000

Malia hits the jackpot in Nevada! Stacey Dewitt Smith Fri, 05/29/2026 - 21:37

The monotypic genus Oryctes had been a fascination in the lab since the earliest days. Solanologist Armando Hunziker placed the genus in Iochrominae because of its purple tubular flowers, but beyond floral traits, Oryctes is its own thing. First, it is tiny and let's be honest, the kind of cute only a mother could love. It is only found in a few high elevation deserts in the west (hello Death Valley), and its seeds have a thin membranous wing around the perimeter.

Malia was determined to find this species and sample it for our Physalideae study. She made the loooong drive from Boulder to the deserts near the Nevada-California border. And boom, Orcytes nevadensis was in full splendor, with flowers and fruits ready to go. Back in the lab, we've been able image the samples and send material off to the Schenck lab for a full biochemistry work-up. Congrats to Malia for making this Solanaceae dream come true!

Our intrepid postdoc travels to find the elusive desert endemic Orcytes nevadensis.

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Another great year of Studio Lab

Stacey Dewitt Smith — Sat, 02 May 2026 04:20:36 +0000

Another great year of Studio Lab Stacey Dewitt Smith Fri, 05/01/2026 - 22:20

The lab had the pleasure of hosting two Studio Lab interns again this year, Lilly Baker and Ofri Leshem. The pair were mentored by Stacey and Elise, and took their project in a novel direction, examining how leaf surface extracts of our wild tomatillos affect microbial growth. There was much swabbing and autoclaving and incubating, and the two shared their cool presentation at the EBIO symposium as well as the Studio Lab symposium. Congrats to both!

This year's Studio Lab researchers tested the effects of tomatillo metabolites on microbes.

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Hot off the presses!

Anonymous — Tue, 16 May 2023 03:22:43 +0000

Hot off the presses! Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 05/15/2023 - 21:22

This month our Solanaceae fruit fossil paper finally came out in New Phytologist! The paper, led by Rocio with a huge team of co-authors including Abel and Stacey, describes two new fruit fossils -- one from the chilipepper tribe (Capsiceae) from Colorado and another from the tomatillo tribe (Physalideae) from Colombia. These two fossils join two previously described Physalis from Patagonia, and all are Eocence fossils (ca. 50 million years old). This paints a new picture of the family -- where we previously thought it was young and South American in origin, it now appears to be widespread long ago and the origin is uncertain. With similarly old fossils in North and South America, Solanaceae could have arisen in either continent, and of course who knows what we may find someday in Australia or Asia!

The fossil chilipepper story was featured in CU Today and has since been picked up by a number of media outlets, including the Denver Gazette, Utah Public Radio, and the Mountain West News Bureau! See below:

1. Chili peppers more deeply rooted in Colorado than previously thought. ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Today (Boulder, USA) - 20/04/2023.

2. Fósiles olvidados de Colombia y Estados Unidos puede reescribir parte de la historia evolutiva de las plantas (Cordoba, Argentina) - 24/04/2023.

3. Fosil puede elevar la línea de tiempo evolutiva (Radio Centro Spain) - 24/04/2023.

4. How forgotten Colorado fossils may rewrite part of plant evolutionary history / Phys.org (Douglas, UK) – 20/04/2023.

5. Los fósiles de Colorado podrían revisar la historia de la evolución de las plantas / Deporticos (San José, Costa Rica) – 20/04/2023.

6. Chili Fossil May Rewrite Tomato Family History / Technology Networks (Sudbury, UK) – 21/04/2023.

7. New study uncovers Colorado’s spicy ancient history of chili peppers / EurekAlert (Washington, USA) – 21/04/2023.

8. Descobreixen els pebrots picants més antics del món / Mon Planeta (Barcelona, España) – 24/04/2023.

9. Chili peppers may have existed in North America 50 million years ago / Earth.com (Telluride, USA) – 24/04/2023.

10. Colorado chili pepper fossil discovery may upend evolutionary timeline / New Atlas (Melbourne, Australia) – 24/04/2023.

11. Chili peppers more deeply rooted in Colorado than previously thought / The Chronicle News (Trinidad, USA) – 24/04/2023.

12. Incredibly Rare Fossil Chilies Reveal They Emerged 50 Million Years Ago / IFLScience (Sudbury, UK) – 24/04/2023.

13. Fossile di peperoncino: avrebbe un’età di 50 milioni di anni / ICrewPlay (Roma, Italy) – 26/04/2023.

14. The origins of chili peppers date back longer than we thought / Axios (Denver, USA) – 28/04/2023.

15. Prehistoric Chili Pepper Fossils Challenge Tomato Plant’s Evolutionary History, Study Says / Science Times (Nueva York, USA) – 30/04/2023.

16. Antik kırmızı biber, domatesin tarihini yeniden yazabilir! / Gidahatti (Ankara, Turkey) – 1/05/2023.

17. An Ancient Chili Pepper May Rewrite The History of The Tomato Plant / ScienceAlert (Canberra, Australia) – 1/05/2023.

18. 50 million-year-old pepper found in Colorado / Popular Science (Nueva York, USA) – 1/05/2023.

19. Un peperoncino fossile potrebbe riscrivere la storia evolutiva di questa famiglia di piante / Focus Tech (Roma, Italy) – 2/05/2023.

20. El fósil de un chile replantea la historia evolutiva de los tomates y los pimientos / Deutsche Welle (Bonn, Germany) – 2/05/2023.

21. The Oldest Chili Pepper Was Found in Colorado—and It’s Around 50 Million Years Old / Sunset Magazine (Los Ángeles, USA) – 5/05/2023.

22. El fósil de un chile olvidado en un museo cambia la historia de los tomates / Wired en español (Mexico city, Mexico) – 8/05/2023.

23. Fossil Chili Pepper Identified As Rooted In Colorado Than Previously Thought / India Education Diary (Nueva Delhi, India) – 9/05/2023.

24. Así es el chile de hace 40 millones de años que acaban de descubrir en Colorado / Tapas Magazine (Madrid, Spain) – 10/05/2023.

25. A 50 Million-Year-Old Fossil Spiced Up What We Knew ��Ҵ�ý�ƽ�� Chili Peppers / The Daily Meal (Indianapolis, United States) – 11/05/2023.

26. Geschichte der Chilischote muss neu geschrieben werden / Latina Press (Undenheim, Germany) – 13/05/2023.

27. Chile pepper history has been rewritten by fossils found in Colorado / The Gazette (Colorado Springs, United States) – 13/05/2023.

28. Research Reveals Fiery Past of Chili Peppers / Mirage News (Wollongong, Australia) – 22/05/2023.

29. NM Chile Peppers Likely Millions of Years Older Than Previously Thought / Public News Service (Boulder, United States) – 30/05/2023.

30. Southwest chile peppers likely millions of years older than previously thought / Utah Public Radio (Logan, Unites States) – 2/06/2023.

31. Chili peppers’ evolutionary origins have Colorado flavor, new study shows / Wyoming Public Radio (Laramie, United States) – 7/06/2023.

32. Chili peppers’ evolutionary origins have Colorado flavor, new study shows / KUNR Public Radio (Reno, United States) – 7/06/2023.

Our new chilipepper fossil generates a lot of buzz in the media.

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Back at GREEBs!

Anonymous — Sun, 25 Sep 2022 09:13:29 +0000

Back at GREEBs! Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 09/25/2022 - 03:13

This weekend we headed up to CU's Mountain Research Station for the annual Guild of Rocky Mountain Ecologists and Evolutionary Biologists (GREEBs) meeting. Agnes shared her cool results showing that transitions to hummingbird pollination happen along elevational gradients in the tropics but not in the temperate Americas, and Ash gave her first ever conference talk on her pollination studies in Rhexia. Pedro and Stacey just came along to enjoy the talks and the amazing fall mountain scenery! We also bumped in to Mandy Malone, a lab alum who is now doing at Master's at UC Denver in forest ecology and was with us when we went to GREEBs for the first time in 2015. It's a small world!!

Our first time presenting in a few years and we ran into an alum from 2015!

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Miranda's work makes CU Today

Anonymous — Mon, 13 Jun 2022 16:33:16 +0000

Miranda's work makes CU Today Anonymous (not verified) Mon, 06/13/2022 - 10:33

Miranda's discovery of structurally colored blue fruits in Lantana strigocamara is out this week in New Phytologist, and CU Today covered the story. Now that Miranda is off in Cambridge in Silvia's lab, Stacey did her best to show off the fruits for the interview with CU Today. Congrats, Miranda on such a cool paper!

Lantana and its sparkly blue fruits were featured on the news -- second ever case of making blue colorwith lipids!

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Congrats to Chelsea on her exit talk!

Anonymous — Sun, 20 Mar 2022 15:11:12 +0000

Congrats to Chelsea on her exit talk! Anonymous (not verified) Sun, 03/20/2022 - 09:11

How have five years gone by so fast! Chelsea gave her exit talk this spring and described her research on the breakdown of self-incompatiblity in the sharp-leaf groundcherry, Physalis acutifolia. She discussed results from her recent paper showing that the small-flowered population she discovered in Arizona is self-compatible unlike the common, large-flowered form. Click here to watch her talk!

Chelsea presented her thesis work on self-compatibility in tomatillos in the EBIO colloquium.

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