
18 June 2019
Senior Research Leader
Natural Capital and Plant Health
Genetics, Genomics, Evolution, Disease resistance
I lead the Plant Health research group at Kew. My research uses evolutionary genomics methods to understand the basis of pest and pathogen susceptibility of plants. My largest project is on the genomics of ash tree species, seeking genes for low susceptibility to ash dieback and the emerald ash borer. My students also work on birch tree genetics in the context of climate change. I have recently started a project on disease and stress tolerance in hazelnut. I am a Professor of Evolutionary Genomics at Queen Mary University of London where I also have a research group and teach an MSc module. I am based in the Jodrell Lab at Kew four days a week, and spend one day per week at Queen Mary University of London.
Sollars, E.S.A., Harper, A.L., Kelly, L.J., Sambles, C.M., [...] & Buggs, R.J.A. (2017).
Nature 541: 212–216.
Zohren, J., Wang, N., Kardailsky, I., Borrell, J. S., Joecker, A., Nichols, R. A., & Buggs, R. J. A. (2016).
Molecular Ecology 25: 2413–2426. Available online
Buggs, R. J. A., Wendel, J. F., Doyle, J. J., Soltis, D. E., Soltis, P. S. & Coate, J. (2014).
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B 369.
Rafiqi, M., Saunders, D., McMullan, M., Oliver, R., Bone, R., Fones, H., Gurr, S., Vincent, D., Coker, T. & Buggs, R.J.A (2018).
In: K. J. Willis (ed.), State of the World’s Fungi. Report. Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. pp. 56–61.
Borrell, J.S., Wang, N., Nichols, R.A. & Buggs, R.J.A (2018).
Heredity 121:304–318.
Elizabeth S. A. Sollars and Richard J. A. Buggs (2018).
BMC Genomics 19: 502.