“When Darwin meets Mendel: phenotypic plasticity links designed experiments and citizen science” 

Dr. Xianran Li 

USDA-ARS, Pullman WA 

Thursday, August 27th, 2026 

Agronomy 3140, 3:00 – 4:00 pm 

Session Description: Charles Darwin spent five years circling the globe to document natural variation through in situ observation. Gregor Mendel spent seven years uncovering the rules of heredity through ex situ experimentation at a quiet monastery garden. Two centuries later, these two approaches are still anchor how we study adaptation—yet deploying both for species with broad geographic ranges remains a challenge due to the resource and logistic constraints. 

This seminar showcases how AI can transform massive citizen science observations into a general trend of flowering time over native habitats. Conducting ex situ common garden experiments identifies and models interactions between GI-Hd1-FTL1 flowering time regulator and critical environmental conditions. Systematical integration of in situ records with designed ex situ experiments uncovers novel mechanisms of adaption driven by differential phenotypic plasticity. 

Join us to see how citizen science, quantitative and molecular genetics, and AI together reshape our ability to understand adaptation and crop performance in a changing world. 

Dr. Xianran Li is a Research Biologist with the USDA–ARS and Adjunct Faculty in the Department of Crop and Soil Sciences at Washington State University. His research program investigates the relationships among the phenome, genome, and envirome that govern crop performance and adaptation across diverse environments. Dr. Li has authored more than 70 peer‑reviewed publications in leading journals, including Cell, Molecular Plant, Nature Plants, and Genome Biology. He has delivered over 50 invited and contributed presentations at national and international conferences.