“I lead a team of Kew scientists investigating character evolution in plants. We conduct research aimed at identifying and understanding (i) how different plant traits interact and evolve to generate the diversity of plant life, and (ii) how key characters influence, or are influenced by, global environmental change. The particular characters currently under study range across all levels of plant organization from the genomic to the whole plant level.
My own research is focused on genomic characters such as genome size, chromosome organization, and DNA repeats (see project: Uncovering the genomic diversity of plants) to (i) understand the origin, evolution and biological significance of the immense diversity of genomic characters across land plants, and (ii) determine how these characters impact at the whole plant level to influence how, when, and where plants grow and respond to global change.
I am also involved in the Plant and Fungal Trees of Life strategic 2020 output and collate genome size data for the Plant DNA C-values database.
The Plant DNA C-values database comprises the most comprehensive compilation of genome size data for land plants and algae available on the internet. The latest release 7.1 (April 2019) contains data for over 12,000 species.”
i.leitch@kew.org
