Climate and Reproductive Biology

Changing climate, including the increasing unpredictability of climatic extremes, such as fire, is providing a continual threat to plant biodiversity, with significant impacts predicted in many regions, including Africa, Southern Asia (including China) and Australia. At the habitat level there is also concern that climate change is making forest areas increasingly susceptible to invasion by alien species.

Vernonia galamensis - we are currently studying how climate change affects seed quality in this important  new oil crop for Africa

The Global Strategy for Plant Conservation highlights the need for the 'development of models with protocols for plant conservation', for example in relation to the 'maintenance of plants within an ecosystem'. The MSBP (within the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew) is well placed to contribute to understanding the potential impacts of climate change on species distributions.

How vulnerable species are responding to climate change will partly depend on the species' reproductive biology, including the response of seeds to the environment. The environment that seeds experience on the parent plant is already recognised as a major influence on seed quality (seed size, germinability, chemical content, etc). Thus, within season and between season field-based studies on seeds will offer an insight into the likely seed performance under changing environmental conditions, particularly when specific climate patterns are used / measured rather than mean conditions.

Treatment of seeds with smoke to simulate the effect of fire on germination

Contact: Dr Matt Daws

See the Science Directory for a full list of projects included in this Theme