Blanka Aguero

Blanka Aguero is a bryologist and bryophyte collections manager at the Duke University Herbarium. She is co-author of the Bryophytes of North Carolina website. She received a broad training in cryptogamic botany (the field traditionally including systematics and ecology of algae, fungi, bryophytes, and lichens) at the Charles University in Prague, Czech Republic. She has had the privilege of collecting bryophytes on most continents, and places with the highest rainfall on Earth are her favorite. She has been looking for mosses and liverworts in North Carolina for 20 years. She collaborates with Jon Shaw (Duke University) on research involving speciation and phylogeography of peatmosses (Sphagnum). She has also been part of the team reconstructing the liverwort tree of life.

Blanka is interested in ways to share the biodiversity information with the public and with other researchers. She is leading databasing efforts at the Duke bryophyte collection and contributing biodiversity data and photographs to the bryophyte portal of the Consortium of Bryophyte herbaria.