18 June 2019
Professor Richard J A Buggs
Senior Research Leader
Department
Natural Capital and Plant Health
Team
Specialism
Genetics, Genomics, Evolution, Disease resistance
Biography
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.
Qualifications and appointments
- Professor of Evolutionary Genomics, Queen Mary University of London
- Fellow of the Linnean Society
- Fellow of the Higher Education Academy
- NERC Peer Review College member
- DPhil, University of Oxford, 2005
- BA (1st class), University of Cambridge, 2000
- Fellow of the Royal Society of Biology
- Editor: Plants People Planet
Projects
-
Genomic resources for healthy ash trees
Finding genes in ash trees to overcome ash dieback and the emerald ash borer.
-
UK National Tree Seed Project
Ensuring that high quality, genetically diverse seed and associated data from UK trees and shrubs are available to support conservation and research.
-
Landscape scale genomic-environment data to enhance the food security of Ethiopian agri-systems
Investigating food insecurity in Ethiopia resulting from climate change and population growth, and genetic and species diversity of Ethiopian agri-systems as the key to resilience.
Selected publications
Sollars, E.S.A., Harper, A.L., Kelly, L.J., Sambles, C.M., [...] & Buggs, R.J.A. (2017).
Genome sequence and genetic diversity of European ash trees.
Nature 541: 212–216.
Zohren, J., Wang, N., Kardailsky, I., Borrell, J. S., Joecker, A., Nichols, R. A., & Buggs, R. J. A. (2016).
Unidirectional diploid-tetraploid introgression among British birch trees with shifting ranges shown by RAD markers.
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).
The legacy of diploid progenitors in allopolyploid gene expression patterns.
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).
Plant-killers: Fungal threats to ecosystems.
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).
Genetic diversity maintained among fragmented populations of a tree undergoing range contraction.
Heredity 121:304–318.
Elizabeth S. A. Sollars and Richard J. A. Buggs (2018).
Genome-wide epigenetic variation among ash trees differing in susceptibility to a fungal disease.
BMC Genomics 19: 502.
Read more
