Plant Sciences

Subject Profile

The Division of Plant Sciences was established in 2007 in order to create a cohesive faculty focused on the study of plant life. Curiosity-led basic research, designed to explore and explain the mechanisms by which plants grow and develop in response to their environment, is combined with the relevant translation of our scientific activity into crop improvement, biofuel development, and the assessment of biodiversity.

The Division of Plant Sciences is part of the world-leading molecular research resources of the College of Life Sciences and is based at the Scottish Crop Research Institute (SCRI), 5km from campus. This unique partnership gives us access to state-of-the-art plant growth facilities and collaboration with a wider community of plant scientists.

We run an active PhD student programme and two MRes courses in partnership with the University of St Andrews (MRes in Environmental Biology and a Conversion course) and a new course (MRes in Crops for the Future), organised with SCRI.

Please refer to the generic Life Sciences entry for further information.

Main Research Interests

Molecular Plant Sciences

The Division of Plant Sciences has five groups who use molecular tools to study aspects of plant development, gene expression, biodiversity and metabolism. Further details and contact information are available by following the group links below:

How plant pathogens trigger, suppress or manipulate host defences (Paul Birch)
RNA processing and expression (John Brown)
Transposons, genome evolution and biodiversity (Andrew Flavell)
Manipulation of plant metabolism using reverse genetics (Claire Halpin)
Regulated gene expression controlling flowering (Gordon Simpson)

Ecology and Environmental Science

The principal interests of the groups involved in ecological and environmental sciences are resource acquisition and water relations in plants, the impact of climate change on plant ecophysiology and plant physiology and the ecology and dynamics of insect-parasite-microorganism associations in collaboration with the Mathematical Biology Group. Further details and contact information are available by following the group links below:

The dynamics of plant-aphid-microbe associations (Steve Hubbard)
Plant ecophysiology: adaptation to environmental stress (Hamlyn Jones)
Interactions among resources in the growth of phytoplankton (John Raven)

Key Staff

Head of Division

Professor J W S Brown BSc, PhD

Other Senior Staff

Professor P Birch BSc, PhD
Professor C Halpin BSc, PhD
Professor J A Raven MA, PhD, FRSE, FRS, FIBiol
Professor H G Jones MA, PhD, FIHort
A J Flavell BSc, PhD
S F Hubbard MSc, DIC, DPhil
G Simpson BSc, PhD

Contact

Morven Pearson
Telephone: 01382 384 765 / +44 1382 384 765
Fax: 01382 388 216 / +44 1382 388 216
Email: morven.pearson@scri.ac.uk