Ecological and Evolutionary Genetics
University of Tasmania
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I study how the environment interacts with genetic variation to determine population responses to novel environments.
Plants face big challenges
Plants face big challenges
From colonising new environments, to invading new areas, plants exposed to novel environments often defy the odds of extinction. Using two plant model systems, Senecio wildflowers and Cardamine bittercresses, I am testing how envrionmental variation influences genetic and phenotypic variation to determine plant responses to novel environments. This involves field and manipulative glasshouse experiments to combine quantitative and molecular genetics with plant ecology and ecophysiology. In particular, I seek to test the ability (or lack thereof) of plant populations to withstand and adapt to the ongoing effects of climate change. I then want to apply this understanding to help develop more climate-resilient crops.
Lead investigator
Lead investigator
Dr Greg M Walter
Lecturer in Ecological Genetics
School of Natural Sciences, University of Tasmania, Australia
Contact: gregory.walter_at_utas.edu.au
I grew up in Brisbane, Australia, exploring subtropical rainforest and dry woodlands. I completed my PhD at the University of Queensland and then spent three years in Europe as a NERC (UK) senior postdoctoral research fellow at the University of Bristol. I helped to develop Senecio wildflowers as a model system, and conducted large field experiments on Mt Etna in Sicily, which have provided novel insights into how plasticity evolves, how genetic variation in plasticity can help populations persist and adapt to novel environments, and how novel environments create genetic constraints to adaptation. I was then lucky to be awarded an ARC DECRA, which led to four years at Monash University to focus on understanding genetic constraints to adaptation across generations using the model fly system, Drosophila melanogaster.
Although I have only recently started at the University of Tasmania, I am seeking to build a research group to study how plasticity evolves, and its role in helping populations to cope with novel environments created by climate change.
Current projects
I am building a research group, please contact me with any enquiries - greg.walter_at_utas.edu.au.
Evolution of plasticity
Evolution of plasticity
Cardamine is closely related to the model system, Arabidopsis. However, Cardamine in Australia is interesting because the genus includes native species that occur in alpine and montane areas that are under threat from climate change. This system is experimentally (field and glasshouse) and genetically (quantatitve and molecular) tractable. It is therefore a powerful system to understand how plasticity evolves, and test fundamental theory about how populations cope with novel environments.
Ecological demographics
Ecological demographics
On Kunanyi is a population of Senecio pinnatifolius var. alpinus i.e., an alpine Senecio. The close proximity to campus means that it will be great to use in undergarduate courses (ecology and genetics) and in research to monitor population demography across years. It will also be used to test the population genetics of genotypes that could help the population to buffer warmer, drier conditions created by climate change.
Constraints to adaptation
Constraints to adaptation
The radiation of Senecio across Australia lends itself to understanding how plasticity evolves during rapid diversification across a landscape. The contrasting environments in which these different ecotypes have evolved, and their recent origin, allow us to understand the processes that promote their rapid adaptation.
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