• Research Associate, Field Museum of Natural History
• Research Associate, Breadfruit Institute, National Tropical Botanical Garden
• Board Member, Trees that Feed Foundation

• Evolutionary processes in plants, especially as they apply to crops and their wild relatives
• Origins, diversity, and conservation of underutilized crop plants, especially in the genus Artocarpus 
• Plant systematics and biogeography
• Pollination biology
• Perennial crops (including breadfruit, jackfruit, and Kernza) and sustainable agriculture

Lab webpage

Inspired by the amazing diversity and utility of plants, my research uses phylogenomic, collections-based, and experimental field approaches to explore the evolution and genetic diversity of underutilized crops and their wild relatives, pollination, biogeography, and taxonomic revisionary work. I am also interested in applying findings to conservation of plant genomic resources and more sustainable agriculture. 

Linkd to Google Scholar for updates

Gardner, E.M., S. Bruun-Lund, M.A. Niissalo, B,Chantarasuwan, W.L. Clement, C. Geri, R.D. Harrison, A.L. Hipp, M. Holvoet, G. Khew, F, Kjellberg, S. Liao, L.C. Pederneiras, Y-Q. Peng, J.T. Pereira, Q. Phillips, A.S.A. Puad, J-Y. Rasplus, J. Sang, S. Schou, E. Velautham, G.D. Weiblen, N.J.C. Zerega, Q. Zhang, Z. Zhang. C. Baraloto, N. Rønsted. 2023. Echoes of ancient introgression punctuate stable genomic lineages in the evolution of figs. Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/pnas.2222035120

Audi, L., G. Shallow, E. Robertson, D. Bobo, D. Ragone, E.M. Gardner, B. Dussoruth, J. Wajer, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2023 Linking breadfruit cultivar names across the globe connects histories after 230 years of separation. Current Biology https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.12.001

Chamberlain, L.A, T. Aguayo, N.J.C. Zerega, R. Dybzinksi, and L. Egerton-Warburton. 2022. Rapid improvement in soil health following the conversion of abandoned farm fields to annual or perennial agroecosystems. Frontiers in Sustainable Food Systems. 6:1010298. https://doi.org/10.3389/fsufs.2022.1010298 

Chuang C-R, Hsieh C-L, Chang C-S, Wang C-M, Tandang DN, Gardner EM, et al. 2022. Amis Pacilo and Yami Cipoho are not the same as the Pacific breadfruit starch crop—Target enrichment phylogenomics of a long-misidentified Artocarpusspecies sheds light on the northward Austronesian migration from the Philippines to Taiwan. PLoS ONE 17(9): e0272680. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0272680

Yang L, Zerega NJC, Montgomery A, Horton DE. 2022. Potential of breadfruit cultivation to contribute to climate-resilient low latitude food systems. PLOS Clim 1(8): e0000062. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pclm.0000062

Gardner, E.M.,S.A. Puad, J.T. Pereira, L. Pokorny, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2022. Engagement with indigenous knowledge improves our understanding of biodiversity and promotes the conservation of both. Current Biology. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2022.04.062

Iwanycki Ahlstrand Natalie, et al, N.J.C. Zerega, Rønsted, N. 2022. Travel tales of a worldwide weed: genomic signature of Plantago major reveal distinct genotypic groups with links to colonial trade routes. Frontiers in Plant Science 13 https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2022.838166

Gardner, E.M., T. Jimbo, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2022. Artocarpus buyangensis, a new species from New Guinea. Systematic Botany 47(2): 452-456 https://doi.org/10.1600/036364422X16512564801542

Gardner, E.M., M. Garner, R. Cowan, S. Dodsworth, N. Epitawalage, O. Maurin, D. Arifiani, S. Sahromi, W.J. Baker, F. Forest, N.J.C. Zerega, A.K. Monro, A.L. Hipp. 2021. Repeated parallel losses of inflexed stamens in Moraceae: phylogenomics and generic revision of the tribe Moreae and the reinstatement of the tribe Olmedieae (Moraceae). Taxon. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12526

Lindsay, D.J. et al., and N.J.C. Zerega, R.-L. Zhu, K.B.H. Er. 2022. Flora of Singapore: Checklist and bibliography. The Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore 74: 2383-5812. https://www.nparks.gov.sg/sbg/research/publications/gardens’-bulletin-singapore/listing-of-publications

Marion Suiseeya, K. M., G. O’Connell, E. Leoso, S.B.N. DeFoe, A. Anderson, M. Bang, P. Beckman, A. Boyer, J. Dunn, J. Gilbert, J. Hester, D.E. Horton, D.B. Jennings, P. Kebec, N. Loeb, P. Loew, W.M. Miller, K. Moffit, A.I. Packman, M.W. Price, B. Redbird, J. Rogers, R. Sankaran, J. Schwoch, P. Silas, W. Twardowski, N.J.C. Zerega. 2022. Waking from Paralysis – Revitalizing Conceptions of Climate Knowledge and Justice for More Effective Climate Action. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science https://doi.org/10.1177/00027162221095495

Gardner, E.M. and N.J.C. Zerega. 2021. Taxonomic updates to Artocarpus subgenus Artocarpus (Moraceae)and allied taxa with a particular focus on the species native to Singapore. Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore 73(2): 309-374.

Gardner, E.M., M. Garner, R. Cowan, S. Dodsworth, N. Epitawalage, O. Maurin, D. Arifiani, S. Sahromi, W.J. Baker, F. Forest, N.J.C. Zerega, A.K. Monro, A.L. Hipp. 2021. Repeated parallel losses of inflexed stamens in Moraceae: phylogenomics and generic revision of the tribe Moreae and the reinstatement of the tribe Olmedieae (Moraceae). Taxon. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12526

Gardner, E.M., L. Audi, Q. Zhang, H. Sauquet, A.K. Monro, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2021. Phylogenomics of Brosimum Sw. (Moraceae) and allied genera, including a revised subgeneric system. Taxon. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12503 

Gardner, E.M., D. Arifiani, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2021. Artocarpus bergii (Moraceae), a new species in the breadfruit clade from the Moluccas. Systematic Botany 46(1) (2021). https://doi.org/10.1600/036364421X16128061189387  

Gardner, E.M. and N.J.C. Zerega. 2020. Taxonomic updates to Artocarpus subgenus Pseudojaca (Moraceae), with a particular focus on the taxa in Singapore. Gardens’ Bulletin Singapore 72(2): 173-213. doi: 10.26492/gbs72(2).2020-06

Gardner, E.M., N.J.C. Zerega, A.K. Monro. 2020. (2757) Proposal to reject the name Antiarideae (Moraceae). Taxon 69(4):827-828. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12304  

Gardner, E.M., M.G. Johnson, J.T. Pereira, A.S.A. Puad, D. Arifiani, Sahromi, N.J. Wickett, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2021. Paralogs and off-target sequences improve phylogenetic resolution in a densely-sampled study of the breadfruit genus (Artocarpus, Moraceae). Systematic Biology syaa073, https://doi.org/10.1093/sysbio/syaa073

Gardner, E.M. and N.J.C. Zerega. 2020. Proposal to reject the name Radermachia rotunda (Artocarpus rotundus) (Moraceae) (2788). Taxon 69(4): 827-828. https://doi.org/10.1002/tax.12402

Gardner, E.M., A. Chaveerach, R. Sudmoon, N.J.C. Zerega. 2020. Two new species of Artocarpus (Moraceae) from Thailand and Vietnam. Phytotaxa Vol. 453, No. 3.

Dickinson, L., H. Noble, E.M. Gardner, A.S.A. Puad, Wan Zakaria, W. and N.J.C. Zerega. 2020. Genetic diversity structure and conservation of critically endangered, Artocarpus annulatus, a crop wild relative of jackfruit. PeerJ. 10.7717/peerj.9897

Zerega, N.J.C., Gardner, E., Wan Zakaria, W. & Ahmad Puad, A.S. 2019. Artocarpus annulatus. The IUCN Red List of Threatened Species2019: e.T86528602A86528612. http://dx.doi.org/10.2305/IUCN.UK.2019-2.RLTS.T86528602A86528612.en

Zhang, Q., E.M Gardner, N.J.C. Zerega, and H. Sauquet. 2019. Long-distance dispersal shaped the diversity of tribe Dorstenieae (Moraceae). Available at BioRxiv  https://www.biorxiv.org/content/10.1101/531855v1

Witherup, C.E., M.I. Zuberi, S. Hossain, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2019. Genetic Diversity of Bangladeshi Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) over Time and Across Seedling Sources. Journal of Economic Botanyhttps://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-019-09452-5

Sahu, S.k., M. Liu, Yssel, R. Kariba, S. Jiang, B. Song, S. Muthemba, P.S. Hendre, R. Jamnadass, S.M. Kao, N.J.C. Zerega, X. Xu, H. Yang, A. Van Deynze, Y. Van de Peer, X. Liu and H. Liu. 2020. Draft Genomes of two Artocarpus plants, Jackfruit (A. heterophyllus) and Breadfruit (A. altilis). Genes 11(1). pii: E27. https://doi.org/10.3390/genes11010027

Witherup, C.E., M.I. Zuberi, S. Hossain, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2019. Genetic Diversity of Bangladeshi Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus) over Time and Across Seedling Sources. Journal of Economic Botany https://doi.org/10.1007/s12231-019-09452-5

Zerega, N.J.C andE.M. Gardner. Delimitation of the new tribe Parartocarpeae (Moraceae) is supported by a 333-gene phylogeny and resolves tribal level Moraceae taxonomy. 2019. Phytotaxa 388 (4): 253–265. https://doi.org/10.11646/phytotaxa.388.4.1

Lincoln, N.K., D. Ragone, N.J.C. Zerega, L. Nkrumah-Roberts, M. Merlin, and A.M. Jones. 2018. Grow Us Our Daily Bread: A Review of Breadfruit Cultivation in Traditional and Contemporary Systems. Horticultural Review 46:299-384.

Laricchia, K.M., M. Johnson, N.J.C. Zerega, and N.J. Wickett. 2018. A transcriptome screen for positive selection in domesticated breadfruit and its wild relatives (Artocarpus spp.). American Journal of Botany.https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1095  

Wang, M., E.M. Gardner, A.R. Milan, Salma, C.M. Yee, R. Chung, L.S. Leong, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2018. Origin and diversity of an underutilized fruit tree crop, Artocarpus integer(Moraceae). American Journal of Botany. https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1094

Gardner, E.M. R. Gagne, P.E. Kendra, W.S. Montgomery, R.A. Raguso, T.T. McNeil and N.J.C. Zerega. A flower in fruit’s clothing: Pollination of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus, Moraceae) by a new species of gall midge,Clinodiplosis ultracrepidatasp. nov. (Diptera: Cecidomyiidae). 2018. International Journal of Plant Sciences. https://www.journals.uchicago.edu/doi/10.1086/697115

Kates, H.R., M.G. Johnson, E.M. Gardner, N.J.C. Zerega, and N.J. Wickett. 2018. Allele phasing has minimal impact on phylogenetic reconstruction from targeted nuclear gene sequences in a case study of Artocarpus(Moraceae). American Journal of Botany https://doi.org/10.1002/ajb2.1068

Briscoe, L.R.E., N.J.C. Zerega, H.T. Lumbsch, M. Stech, E. Kraichak, M.J. von Konrat, J.J. Engel, and N. Wickett. 2017. Molecular, morphological, and biogeographic perspectives on the classification of Acrobolboideae (Acrobolbaceae, Marchantiophyta). Phytotaxa319 (1): 056–070. http://mapress.com/j/pt/article/view/phytotaxa.319.1.2/12195

Gardner, E.M., P. Sarraf, and N.J.C. Zerega. Phylogeny and biogeography of Maclura (Moraceae) and the origin of an anachronistic fruit. 2017. Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ympev.2017.06.021

Williams, E.W., E.M. Gardner, R. Harris III, A. Chaveerach, J.T. Pereira, and N.J.C. Zerega. Out of Borneo: Biogeography, phylogeny, and divergence date estimates of Artocarpus (Moraceae). Accepted pending minor revisions. Annals of Botany.

Zerega, N.J.C. and D. Ragone. In press. Toward a global view of breadfruit genetic diversity. Proceedings from the International Breadfruit Conference. Tropical Agriculture.

Gardner, E.M., M.G. Johnson, D. Ragone, N.J. Wickett, & N.J.C. Zerega. 2016. Low-coverage, whole-genome sequencing of Artocarpus camansi(Moraceae) for phylogenetic marker development and gene discovery. Applications in Plant Sciences, 4(7), apps.1600017.http://doi.org/10.3732/apps.1600017

Johnson, M.G., E.M. Gardner, Y. Liu, R. Medina, B. Goffinet, A.J., N.J.C. Zerega, and N.J. Wickett. 2016. HybPiper: Extracting coding sequence and introns for phylogenetics from high-throughput sequencing reads using target enrichment.Applications in Plant Sciences, 4(7), apps.1600016.http://doi.org/10.3732/apps.1600016

Gardner, E.M., K.M. Laricchia, M. Murphy, D. Ragone, B.E. Scheffler, S. Simpson, E.W. Williams, and N.J.C. Zerega. 2015. Primer Note: Chloroplast microsatellite markers for Artocarpus (Moraceae) developed from transcriptome sequences. Applications in Plant Sciences 3(9): http:dx.doi.org/10.3732/apps.1500049

Zerega, N.J.C., T. Wiesner-Hanks, D. Ragone, B. Irish, B. Scheffler, S. Simpson, and F. Zee. 2015. Diversity of the breadfruit complex (Artocarpus, Moraceae): Genetic characterization of critical germplasm. Tree Genetics and Genomes. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s11295-014-0824-z  

Zerega, N.J.C., G. Ravikanth, E.M. Gardner, K. Laricchia, T. Melhem, M. Wang, C. E. Witherup, S. Setty, M.I. Zuberi, M.R. Jagdish, and D. Ragone. 2015. New genomic resources to understand genetic diversity and promote crop improvement of jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus), breadfruit (A. altilis), and other under utilized Artocarpus crops. Procedings of the International Symposium on Jackfruit and Breadfruit of the Tropics.

Zerega, N.J.C. 2014. Origins and Development of Breadfruit, in C. Smith (ed.). Encyclopedia of Global Archaeology. P. 234. Springer, New York, New York.

Witherup, C, D. Ragone, T. Wiesner-Hanks, B. Irish, B. Scheffler, S. Simpson, F. Zee, M. I. Zuberi, N.J.C. Zerega. 2013. "Development of microsatellite loci in Artocarpus altilis (Moraceae) and cross-amplification in congeneric species." Applications in Plant Science 1(7): 1200423. www.bioone.org/doi/full/10.3732/apps.1200423#.UhOtVmR4bfg

Misiewicz, T. and N.C. Zerega. 2012. "Phylogeny, Biogeography and Character Evolution of Dorstenia (Moraceae)." Edinburgh Journal of Botany 69(3): 413-440. http://journals.cambridge.org/action/displayAbstract?fromPage=online&aid=8708221

Zerega, N.J.C., M.N. Nur Supardi, and T.J. Motley. 2010. Phylogeny and recircumscription of Artocarpeae (Moraceae) with a focus on Artocarpus. Systematic Botany 35 (4): 766 - 783.

Khan, R., N.J.C. Zerega, S. Hossain, and M.I. Zuberi. 2010. Jackfruit (Artocarpus heterophyllus Lam.) Diversity in Bangladesh: Land Use and Artificial Selection. Economic Botany 64(2): 124-136.

Rønsted, N., G.D. Weiblen, W.L. Clement, N.J.C. Zerega, and V. Savolainen. 2008. Reconstructing the phylogeny of figs (Ficus, Moraceae) to reveal the history of the fig pollination mutualism. Symbiosis 45:45-56.

Zerega, N.J.C., D. Ragone, and T.J. Motley. 2006. Genetic diversity and origins of domesticated breadfruit. In Darwin’s Harvest: New Approaches to the Origins, Evolution, and Conservation of Crops, ed. T.J. Motley, N.J.C. Zerega, and H.B. Cross. Columbia University Press, New York.

Motley, T.J., N.J.C. Zerega, and H.B. Cross, ed. 2006. Darwin’s Harvest: New Approaches to the Origins, Evolution, and Conservation of Crops. New York: Columbia University Press.

Zerega, N.J.C., W.L. Clement, S.L. Datwyler, and G.D. Weiblen. 2005. Biogeography and divergence times in the mulberry family (Moraceae). Molecular Phylogenetics and Evolution 37:402-416.

Zerega, N.J.C., D. Ragone, and T.J. Motley. 2005. Systematics and species limits of breadfruit (Artocarpus, Moraceae). Systematic Botany 30(3):603-615.

Zerega, N.J.C., L.A. Mound, and G.D. Weiblen. 2004. Pollination in the New Guinea endemic Antiaropsis decipiens (Moraceae) is mediated by a new species of thrips, Thrips antiaropsidis sp. nov. (Thysanoptera:Thripidae). International Journal of Plant Sciences 165(6):1,017-1,026.

Zerega, N.J.C., D. Ragone, and T.J. Motley. 2004. Complex origins of breadfruit: Implications for human migrations in Oceania. American Journal of Botany 91(5):760-766.

Zerega, N.J.C. 2003. The Breadfruit Trail. Natural History 112(10):46-51.

Zerega, N.J.C., S. Mori, C. Lindqvist, Q. Zheng, and T.J. Motley. 2002. Using amplified fragment length polymorphisms (AFLP) to identify black cohosh (Actaea racemosa). Economic Botany 56(2):154-164.

Bultman, T.L. and N.J. Conard. 1998. Effects of endophytic fungus, nutrient level, and plant damage on performance of Fall Armyworm (Lepidoptera: Noctuidae). Environmental Entomology 27(3):631-635.

Zerega Lab Group
The Zerega Lab aims to understand evolutionary processes in plants, especially as they apply to underutilized crops and their wild relatives. The research takes both a basic and applied approach with the goals of advancing crop improvement, sustainable agriculture, and food security, as well as informing the conservation of plant genetic resources. 

Graduate Program in Plant Biology and Conservation
This program is a collaboration between Northwestern University and the Chicago Botanic Garden. The graduate program offers thesis and non-thesis master’s degree and Ph.D. programs and aims to foster an academic and research environment that allows students to gain experience, skills, and knowledge to become scholars, leaders, and practitioners in plant biology and conservation.

New Roots for Restoration

A collaborative NSF funded project advancing the understanding of diverse perennial systems in nature and agriculture