Understanding Photosynthetic Acclimation to Temperature

Growing human populations are increasing demand for food, but at the same time, climates are changing and, crucially, becoming more variable. Changes in climate are undermining efforts to increase crop productivity, threatening food security. In the UK climate, it is expected that we will have warmer wetter winters and hotter drier summers, with periods of flood, drought and heat expected to increase.

This project will build on previous work in the supervisors' laboratory to explore the responses of plants to temperature stress. We have previously shown that the model brassica species Arabidopsis thaliana is able to acclimate its photosynthetic capacity to changes in temperature and that this acclimation is essential to optimising seed production. This project will extend these measurements into agronomically important crop species, including Brassica napus and Brassica rapa, and ask to what extent the same processes are important. Work will involve the latest techniques in plant physiology (gas exchange, optical spectropscopy) with molecular biological and biochemical approaches to understand the molecular basis of temperature acclimation. This work will make a key contribution to understanding the limitations on crop productivity and will help to open up new avenues in crop breeding to address the world food crisis.