Plant Phenome

1 December 2019 - 30 November 2021

PI/s in Exeter: Professor John Dupré

Research partners: Dr. Özlem Yılmaz

Funding awarded: 212933 Euro

Sponsor(s): European Commission

Project webpage(s)

Plant Phenome

About the research

Plant Phenomics has been growing and advancing rapidly in the last decades. Two important facts drive this growth:

1) the need for growing more food with better nutrition quality for the world population which has been rising enormously along with increasing social inequalities;

2) the need for better understanding of plant-environment interaction so improving the ability to produce crops better adapted to coping with uncertainties in future climate.

This project aims to provide a detailed philosophical analysis of the main concepts and methodologies in phenome research, specifically in plant science. Main methodology will be traditional philosophical analysis both in philosophy and scientific literature. Genotype, phenotype and environment are concepts traditionally at the core of theoretical biology and philosophy of biology. Philosophy of biology has paid far more attention to genotypes than phenotypes, and this project will make an important contribution to redressing this balance.