Pieter Pelser is a Lecturer in Plant Systematics and the director of the herbarium at the University of Canterbury

University of Canterbury

The University of Canterbury , New Zealand's second-oldest university, operates its main campus in the suburb of Ilam in the city of Christchurch, New Zealand...

 in Christchurch

Christchurch

Christchurch is the largest city in the South Island of New Zealand, and the country's second-largest urban area after Auckland. It lies one third of the way down the South Island's east coast, just north of Banks Peninsula which itself, since 2006, lies within the formal limits of...

, New Zealand. One research interest is the evolutionary history of the tribe Senecioneae

Senecioneae

Senecioneae is the largest tribe of the Asteraceae, or the sunflower family, comprising approximately 150 genera and 3,000 species. Almost one-third of the species in this tribe are placed in the genus Senecio...

, one of the largest tribe

Tribe

A tribe, viewed historically or developmentally, consists of a social group existing before the development of, or outside of, states.Many anthropologists use the term tribal society to refer to societies organized largely on the basis of kinship, especially corporate descent groups .Some theorists...

s in the largest family

Family (biology)

In biological classification, family is* a taxonomic rank. Other well-known ranks are life, domain, kingdom, phylum, class, order, genus, and species, with family fitting between order and genus. As for the other well-known ranks, there is the option of an immediately lower rank, indicated by the...

 of flowering plant

Flowering plant

The flowering plants , also known as Angiospermae or Magnoliophyta, are the most diverse group of land plants. Angiosperms are seed-producing plants like the gymnosperms and can be distinguished from the gymnosperms by a series of synapomorphies...

s. He wrote the most recent attempt to define and delimit this tribe and its problematic founding species Senecio

Senecio

Senecio is a genus of the daisy family that includes ragworts and groundsels. The flower heads are normally rayed, completely yellow, and the heads are borne in branched clusters...

.
He also studies insects that eat these plants (Longitarsus

Longitarsus jacobaeae

Longitarsus jacobaeae is a species of flea beetle known as the tansy ragwort flea beetle. It is used as an agent of biological pest control against the noxious weed known as ragwort ....

) which contain pyrrolizidine alkaloids and what makes them choose which plants they eat.

Another research interest is the Philippine members of the genus Rafflesia

Rafflesia

Rafflesia is a genus of parasitic flowering plants. It contains approximately 28 species , all found in southeastern Asia, on the Malay Peninsula, Borneo, Sumatra, Thailand and the Philippines.Rafflesia was found in the Indonesian rain forest by an Indonesian guide working for Dr...

, which has the biggest flowers of any plant, and in particular the conservation of them.

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