People
Owens, Simon J.
| Job Title | Keeper of the Herbarium |
|---|---|
| Department | Herbarium |
| Section | Head |
| Science Teams |
Wet Tropics: Africa Large-Scale Syntheses |
| Joined Kew | 1971 |
| Foreign Language(s) | basic French, basic Spanish. |
Qualifications & Appointments
BSc (Hons), Univ. College Wales (Aberystwyth), 1969
PhD, Univ. Reading, 1974.
Special Professor, University of Nottingham
Kew rep., Consortium of European Taxonomic Facilities (CETAF)
Trustee, Bentham Moxon Trust (Kew)
Trustee, International Legume Database Information System (ILDIS)
Kew rep., SYNTHESYS GB-TAF
Assessment team, EU-INTAS
SysResource, London (2004)
ParSyst and Colparsyst, Paris (2005)
Science Audit Group, Muséum National d’Histoire Naturelle, Paris (1998)
Science Audit Group, Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (1997)
Review Committee, Royal Horticultural Society (1997)
Biology Recorder, British Association (1990).
Role
Reproductive biology in higher plants; floral morphology; plant identification; in situ conservation
The Keeper’s post is largely administrative and the opportunity for research is very limited. The post is focused on the legal obligations relating to the building and collections: accessions, maintenance and access, day-to-day management of staff and budgets, and monitoring Key Measure achievement. The Keeper is also responsible for co-ordinating Darwin Initiative Grant applications, Flora of China, and European Union funding in collaboration with the Natural History Museum, London, and is currently SYNTHESYS Network Activity C team leader focusing on collection standards in Europe. The Keeper attends family sorts for Rubiaceae and for the African teams. Current research work is collaborative with Dr Renée Miller (freelance researcher) and Simon Linington (Kew-MSB), targeted at the creation of a breeding systems database. The Brassicaceae has been the first family completed with over 350 references examined and data for more than 200 species extracted and evaluated. A paper has been drafted so that the results will be published and the data will be made available from the database designed by staff at the Seed Conservation Department.
Projects
European Distributed Institute of Taxonomy (EDIT)
European Network for Biodiversity Information
Synthesis of Systematic Resources
The Biological Collection Access Service for Europe (BioCASE)
Selected Publications 2001-2005
Owens, S.J., Prior, A. & Fuscone, R. (2003). Legal and Intellectual Property issues. In Scoble, M.J. (ed) The European Natural History Specimen Information Network. Natural History Museum, London. 86-101.
Owens, S.J. & Cribb, P.J., (2003). Pressed into service: 150 years of the Kew Herbarium and Library. Orchids 72 (12): 931-935.
Selected Publications pre-2001
Parokonny, A.S., Kenton, A.Y., Meredith, L., Owens, S.J. & Bennett, M.D. (1992). Genomic divergence of allopatric sibling species studied by molecular cytogenetics of their F1 hybrids. The Plant Journal 2: 695-704.
Owens, S.J., Jackson, A., Maunder, M., Rudall, P. & Johnson, M.A.T. (1993). The breeding system of Ramosmania-dioecy or heterostyly. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 113: 77-86
Owens, S.J., Prychid, C. & Cox, A.V. (1995). Structure and development of the stigma, style and ovary of Caesalpinia pulcherrima (L.) Sw., post-anthesis, pre- and post-pollination. Botanical Journal of the Linnean Society 118: 275-288.
James, J.D., Saunders, G.C. & Owens, S.J. (1996). Presence of double-stranded RNAs in endomycorrhizal fungi isolated from orchid roots. In Azcon-Aguilar, C. & Barea, J.M. (eds), Proceedings of the Fourth European Symposium on Mycorrhizas 1994. Brussels: European Commission. 241-244.
Owens, S.J. & Rudall, P. (1998). Reproductive Biology in Systematics, Conservation and Economic Botany. Proceedings of Reproductive Biology 96. Kew: Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. 491 pp.