Dr Mike Charters

My current research explores the genetic basis of adaptation in UK silver birch to climate change and pathogen prevalence. Through the use of modern genomic and bioinformatic tools we aim to investigate the scale and pattern of genetic diversity in this species, as well as the genetic control of phenotypic traits and prospects for adaptation to environmental stress. This DEFRA-funded study is part of the Centre for Forest Protection and combines the genomic analysis of provenance trials managed by Forest Research with that of natural populations banked at the Millennium Seed Bank under the UK National Tree Seed Project.

My previous research examined the regulation of carbon-for-nutrient exchange between plants and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi by using abiotic and biotic factors to modulate source-sink dynamics.

• PhD, Plant & Fungal Biology, University of Leeds, 2020
• MBiolSci, Ecology, University of Sheffield, 2015