Austin Mast

Austin R. Mast
Alma materUniversity of Wisconsin-Madison
Scientific career
InstitutionsFlorida State University

Austin R. Mast is a research botanist. Born in 1972, he obtained a Ph.D. from the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2000. He is currently a professor within the Department of Biological Science at Florida State University (FSU), and has been director of FSU's Robert K. Godfrey Herbarium since August 2003.[1]

One of his main areas of research is the phylogenetics of Grevilleoideae, a subfamily of Proteaceae. In 2005 he showed the genus Banksia to be paraphyletic with respect to Dryandra,[2] Collaborating with Australian botanist Kevin Thiele, he subsequently transferred all Dryandra taxa to Banksia, publishing over 120 taxonomic names in the process.[3] The change has been adopted by the Western Australian Herbarium,[4] although has met with some controversy.[5]

He has previously worked on the Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project, which created a repository of annotated high-resolution digital images of plant specimens within the East Gulf Coastal Plain, a region with a very high diversity of rare and endangered plants.[6]

The standard author abbreviation A.R.Mast is used to indicate this person as the author when citing a botanical name.[7]

  1. ^ "Dr. Austin Mast". Faculty and Research, Department of Biological Science, Florida State University. Archived from the original on 7 April 2007. Retrieved 2007-03-22.
  2. ^ Mast, Austin R.; Eric H. Jones; Shawn P. Havery (2005). "An Assessment of Old and New DNA sequence evidence for the Paraphyly of Banksia with respect to Dryandra (Proteaceae)". Australian Systematic Botany. 18 (1): 75–88. doi:10.1071/SB04015.
  3. ^ Mast, Austin R. and Kevin Thiele (2007). "The transfer of Dryandra R.Br. to Banksia L.f. (Proteaceae)". Australian Systematic Botany. 20: 63–71. doi:10.1071/SB06016.
  4. ^ Thiele, Kevin (20 May 2008). "Why dryandras have changed their name". FloraBase: Western Australian Flora. Department of Environment and Conservation, Western Australian Herbarium. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
  5. ^ O'neill, Graeme (14 September 2009). "Feature: Blooming controversy". Australian Life Scientist. IDG Communications. Archived from the original on 2009-09-25. Retrieved 2009-12-16.
  6. ^ "Deep South Plant Specimen Imaging Project". Retrieved 2007-05-08.
  7. ^ International Plant Names Index.  A.R.Mast.