About me:

**Please visit my personal webpage which give more details of research projects”

I am a Professor of Tropical Plant Diversity and Biogeography. My research and teaching interests are broad, ranging from plant biogeography to palaeoecology to conservation. My background is in the tropics, especially Latin America, where I have worked across 10 countries. In recent years most of my research has focused on biodiversity, biogeography and ecology of dry biomes in the tropics. Much of my work has had clear implications for conservation and livelihoods, and this continues in new projects with focus on agroforestry and ecosystem restoration in some of the world’s most threatened tropical forests and savannas.

I joined the University of Exeter in 2017 from The Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh (RBGE) where I was Head of Tropical Diversity, responsible for a group of 30 including PhD students, associate researchers and eight core-funded PhD level scientific staff. I still maintain a part-time position at RBGE.

I chair the University's Global Challenges Research Fund Funder Advisory Network (GCRF FAN) committee, and sit on the Major Funders Strategy Group and the Global Strategy Working Group.

Broad research specialisms:

Plant biogeography, plant taxonomy and floristic inventory, phylogenetics, conservation

Interests:

My research has aimed to address one of the fundamental questions of tropical biology – how and when did the huge species numbers in the tropics arise? It is grounded in fundamental descriptive taxonomic, inventory and phylogenetic research, which provides the foundation to address biogeographic and evolutionary questions.

Principal areas of recent research include:

Floristic inventory and conservation of neotropical dry forests
Seasonally dry tropical forests (SDTF) occur as fragments throughout Latin America. They are the world's most threatened tropical forest but receive far less scientific and conservation attention than rain forests. I developed and lead the DRYFLOR network that now brings together more than 100 workers in SDTF floristics and conservation from across Latin America and the Caribbean. DRYFLOR has developed the first comprehensive dataset of the flora of neotropical SDTF across their full range. DRYFLOR’s data are freely available and they help to pinpoint priority conservation areas.

Biogeography and Phylogeny
My research has focused on legumes, the third largest flowering plant family, which has a global distribution and enormous economic importance (e.g., peas, beans, lentils, soy). I have taken a leading role in the Legume Phylogeny Working Group (LPWG) that aims to develop collaborative research towards a comprehensive phylogeny and classification for legumes. Because legume trees dominate the tropical forests and savannas of Africa and the New World, they are an excellent exemplar to investigate key questions of tropical biogeography and diversification. My research has demonstrated that historical dispersal, even across major oceans, is a driving force shaping tropical plant distributions and is a key factor controlling the assembly of the world’s richest tree communities in Amazonia. Another theme has been to investigate whether the distinct ecologies of different major vegetation formations (biomes) lead to distinct patterns of biogeography and evolution over evolutionary timescales.

Other phylogenetic research addresses how plant defences against herbivores have evolved and how have they influenced species radiations in the tropics. This collaboration with University of Utah, Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute and University of Edinburgh has offered an excellent opportunity to develop expertise in the application of next-generation DNA sequencing to front-line tropical biodiversity problems, and we published one of the first papers on the hybrid-capture technique in plant phylogenetics.

Tropical landuse solutions:

An overarching goal is to develop leadership in monitoring of biodiversity, carbon stored in forests, tree growth, and tree mortality in Latin America beyond rain forests and into tropical dry forests. This work has been supported by UK (NERC)-Brazil (Newton/FAPESP/FAPERJ) funding and forms a platform for ecological, biogeographic and evolutionary research.

Other research aims to address the challenges of conserving and restoring tropical vegetation in a manner that considers the livelihoods of local populations. One project in this area focuses on the legume tree genus Inga, which has fast growth rates, edible fruits and the ability to fix nitrogen, and so has excellent properties for agroforestry systems. This work has been supported by BBSRC and GCRF, and has taken advantage of hybrid-capture phylogenetic techniques to pinpoint species with high potential in agroforestry and silvo-pastoral systems. Ultimately, the work aims to enhance emerging agrosystems which integrate sustainable food production with maintenance of ecosystem services, soil fertility and biodiversity across Latin America.

Qualifications:

BA Botany (Oxford)
DPhil Botany (Oxford)