Research in plant biology

Research groups and labs

• Adaptive Evolution Lab

  Combining experimental and computational approaches to study the effect of environmental variation and stress on natural population.

• Alex Idnurm Lab - Mycology

  This research aims to prevent fungi from causing problems to humans and to find new treatment and management strategies, while addressing also the potential fungi have to enhance our lives.

• Biodiversity Dynamics Research Group (biodynamos)

  Undertaking research on plant evolution and global change, fire management, animal ecology and conservation decision making.

• Birch Lab: Plant and Fungi Systematics

  Reconstructing branches of the plant and fungal trees of life, investigating the evolution of morphological and ecological traits, and quantifying and describing new taxa.

• Crop Agronomy Group

  The Crop Agronomy Group specialise in improving water limited productivity of dry-land cropping and mixed farming systems.

• CropGEM Lab: Crop Genetics and Molecular Evolution Lab

  The Crop Evolution and Molecular Genetics Group (CropGEM) researches the genetic and molecular basis of cereal improvement, focussing primarily on cereal crops including wheat, barley, and oat.

• Golz Group - Plant Developmental Genetics

  Understanding how complex patterns of gene expression are generated and maintained during cell-type specification and differentiation in multicellular organisms.

• Haydon Plant Cell Signalling Lab

  We use genetics, chemical biology, molecular biology, biochemistry and systems analyses to understand mechanisms that control circadian rhythms with a particular focus on metabolic signalling and nutrient balance.

• Nitrogen Management and Fertiliser Technology

  Our research aims to improve the productivity potential and environmental outcomes of food production systems for future food security.

• Johnson Lab: Plant Nutrition and Biofortification of Cereal Crops

  This lab takes a multi-faceted approach towards crop biofortification, focusing on how plants absorb nutrients, the factors affecting nutrient bioavailability in edible parts of plants and understanding the nutrient decreases that occur under elevated carbon dioxide.

• Plant Pathology

  Plant Pathology focuses on using the latest molecular biology tools combined with a basic disciplinary approach to drive cutting-edge research in host-pathogen relationships, taxonomy and genetic diversity of fungal plant pathogens and development of diagnostics for biosecurity.

• Plant Systematics Group - Herbarium / Systematics and Biogeography

  We study the phylogeny, classification and biogeography of Australasian plants, including eucalypts, acacias, Eremophila, Nicotiana, Dianella, Grevillea, the family Rutaceae, ferns and bryophytes.

• Sustainable Agricultural Production

  The Sustainable Agricultural Production research group has internationally recognised expertise in sustainable intensification of crop, pasture and animal production.

• Verbruggen Laboratory - Algal Biology and Coral Environmental Microbiology

  The lab carries out research on algal biology and coral holobiont functioning. Our eclectic range of work includes biodiversity, genome biology, photophysiology, molecular phylogenetics and evolutionary biology.

• Waterway Ecosystem Research Group (WERG)

  Studying the interactions between landscapes and running waters. We aim to generate knowledge and tools for achieving healthy streams and rivers in urban and rural landscapes.

• Watt Group - Plant and Root System Biology

  Led by Michelle Watt, the Adrienne Clarke Professorial Chair of Botany, making discoveries about the root systems of plants, and applying those discoveries to engineering plant systems that sustain healthy life on Earth and in future in space.