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Peter Schafran

@peterwschafran.com
33 followers 52 following 22 posts

Research Scientist at Duke University. I work on hornwort and quillwort genomics and systematics

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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 01/08/2026
Genomics. Bioinformatics. Environmental sustainability and discovery. Entrepreneurship. That is what happens when science and business come together—and it is an extraordinary opportunity for the next generation of innovators!
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 01/08/2026
Campers collected environmental DNA, applied next-gen sequencing, and used bioinformatics to assemble whole genomes and interpret environmental DNA. But the experience does not stop at the laboratory door: students are also learning how scientific discoveries can become viable products.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 01/08/2026
Led by an outstanding team of scientists and entrepreneurs—Dr. Peter Schafran (Duke University); Pabel Delgado, (Asterism Healthcare) and Dr. Francisco Camacho (Graham Genomics Laboratory) —students explored the entire journey from environmental discovery to real-world innovation.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 01/08/2026
🧬 GENOMES IN THE WILD! 🌿💻🚀 This week, rising high school juniors and seniors stepped into the world of genomics at Catawba College at the Bill and Shari Graham Genomics Laboratory.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 23/06/2026
In such an extreme habitat, black-spored quillwort was particularly sensitive to the drought in Georgia this spring (one of the worst in a decade). Luckily ...
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 21/06/2026
It isn’t just rare plants that rely on granite outcrop pools, they’re also home to aquatic invertebrates like shrimp, copepods, rotifers, and ostriches. Amphibians cross the vast expanses of bare rock to lay eggs there too.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 11/06/2026
Species like black-spored quillwort in particular need high-rimmed pools that hold in water and prevent the thin soil from being washed away. In the US their adaptation to this habitat is a new phenomenon, evolving within the last five million years.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 11/06/2026
For three hundred million years — since quillwort ancestors dominated Earth’s earliest forests — rainfall has eroded away these rocks with ephemeral rivulets and pools.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 10/06/2026
Dormant plants can still take advantage of summer thunderstorms, producing new leaves in just one day.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 10/06/2026
These little oases are entirely dependent on rainfall. The quillworts that live here have adapted by shortening their life cycle and shifting their growing season to winter and spring. Their spores mature in early summer as the pools dry out and plants enter dormancy.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 08/06/2026
Not many outcrops are well protected. They attract activities like trash dumping, off-roading, quarrying, and bonfires. As a result, about 50% of black-spored quillwort populations have been extirpated in the last 100 years.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 07/06/2026
An unusual Isoetes, black-spored quillwort grows over bare rock in a thin layer of sand where rainfall collects during the winter. It will survive the summer in the soil as spores and desiccation-tolerant rootstocks. Quillworts have adapted to this habitat several times around the world.
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 27/05/2026
Back by request, my online quillwort course is happening this September! Registration at eaglehill.us
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 06/04/2026
Mark your calendars, news coming soon...
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Peter Schafran @peterwschafran.com · 20/03/2025
The reviews are in, this was the best Quillwort Conference ever! Thanks so much to our speakers: Gemma Milly Lisa George David Wickell @wickellomics.bsky.social Megan Nibbelink @megantheebotanist.bsky.social Jacob Suissa John Evans
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