ROYAL BOTANIC GARDENS, KEW

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2026 · 2026-08

Globally, diets have become dominated by a narrow range of crops. This poses threats to our food system, for example if new pathogens evolve, if heatwaves reduce yield of our staple crops, or wars and diseases prevent or change patterns of trade. Use of a wider range of other less researched crops that have known importance in local and regional food-systems would increase resilience to environmental and economic change. Only a few crops have spread far beyond their regions of origins. In environmental terms this means they have successfully transgressed the more limited ecological niche of their wild progenitor, while in cultural terms this means that a food plant has been adopted and accommodated to a range of cultural food traditions. The reasons why some crops have been more successful, in terms of becoming globally widespread and ecologically transgressive, is critical in prioritising efforts at revitalization or expansion of such crops. Crop diversity is created by both biological and cultural forces, but the cultural and historical dimensions have been neglected in the agricultural and botanical sciences. To remedy this, we aim to provide insight into the interplay of the environment, antiquity and culture on crop evolution and diversification histories. We will for the first time combine genomics, archaeology and ethnobotany (the study of plants and people) to study crop domestication and evolutionary histories, through the example of lablab or hyacinth bean. Lablab was one of a small group of five African crops that spread to South Asia in prehistory starting ~4000 years ago, marking them as especially successful at transcending their original ecologies and cultures. Legume crops (beans, pulses, including lablab) are critical for future food security as they offer high levels of protein and other nutrients, yet are far less studied than cereals (wheat, corn, rice). They also are nitrogen-fixing, requiring less use of fertilizers. Legumes of tropical origins, like lablab, are especially important for food security and sustainability in large parts of the developing world. Lablab is one of the world's most adaptable crops, grown from very dry to wet tropical regions, and has different uses and forms resulting from cultural selection and environmental adaptation. It is used in different parts of the world as a dried bean, fresh beans, fermented paste, and for its pods and leaves as a vegetable, especially in east and southeast Asia; in many farming systems it is also grown as animal fodder. Our overarching aim is to resolve the genetic, ecological, and cultural basis of crop evolutionary processes, through determining: 1) the domestication, diversification, and dispersal histories of lablab, and (2) how varietal groupings, traits and genes are linked to environmental adaptation and/or human selection   Existing evidence supports two domestications in East Africa, but details are lacking on subsequent dispersal routes within Africa, and across India. We will expand this through additional genomic analyses, including from new targeted collections with partners. Archaeobotanical records will document seed evolution and place this in time and space, and ethnobotanical and colonial archive sources will document cultural uses and changes in recent centuries. Taken together we will reconstruct processes of diversification and adaptation over the long-term, as well as diversity loss, contributing towards identifying where conservation is urgent, and where breeding efforts and revitalization are most promising, including for future climate resilience.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-12

Accurately and consistently identifying species is integral to conducting biodiversity research, from understanding how individual species evolved and wider ecosystems function, to predicting how they might respond to climate change. Yet, for many groups of tropical plants, this fundamental task is extremely challenging, thanks to the overwhelming diversity of tropical forests and our limited knowledge of many plant groups, hindering attempts to document, understand and protect Earth’s most biodiverse and threatened terrestrial ecosystems. This project will  combine resources and expertise in an interdisciplinary partnership between plant systematists and tropical ecologists working at the hyper-diverse and highly threatened interface between Amazonia and    the Tropical Andes biodiversity hotspot, where both undocumented taxonomic diversity and uncertainty about the impacts of climate change are at their highest. It will test a novel approach to addressing these challenges and rapidly and accurately resolving the diversity and ecology of poorly known plant groups in the Tropics. For systematists working to understand the evolutionary origin and contemporary distribution of plant diversity,    the partnership will accelerate the discovery and description of new species, and provide an comprehensive account of the diversity, distribution and evolutionary relationships  for one of the most species-rich and ecologically important families of trees in Bolivia’s Yungas Ecoregion Lauraceae. Meanwhile, for ecologists it will lead to the development of new tools for rapidly and accurately identifying sterile plant material in forest monitoring plots, and allow us to test the likely impacts of climate change on a comprehensive, taxonomically verified dataset, and – crucially – how these results differ from current estimates. Lauraceae is among the most diverse and ecologically important families of trees in tropical Andean forests. Abundant across elevations, co-evolved with the Tropical Rainforest biome, and a vital source of food and shelter for many animals  including humans, it is the most species-rich family of trees at intermediate elevations   and thus a potentially excellent model group for understanding the potential impacts of climate change on tropical forests. But accurately identifying Lauraceae trees is remarkably difficult, with almost half of individuals essentially unidentifiable, even by experts. Working in the Madidi Project in the Bolivian Yungas, the partnership will begin with joint workshops where unidentified  voucher specimens from forest monitoring plots are compared with verified herbarium reference collections held by the three participating institutions to formulate putative species identifications. DNA from representative individuals will then be used to rapidly and empirically test the validity of each of these putative species. This genomic verification will underpin new species descriptions, improved identification tools based on readily available vegetative characters and DNA barcodes, and the collation of detailed and comprehensive distribution and functional trait data. Finally, the resulting taxonomically verified dataset will be used to test whether species are migrating in response to climate change in one of the most ecologically important but poorly known families of trees in tropical forests. The Madidi Project provides an excellent opportunity to test and refine an approach to tropical biodiversity research that integrates skills and resources from both tropical ecologists  working in forest monitoring plots and systematists working in biodiversity reference collections held in global herbaria, at a time when an accurate and comprehensive understanding of the biodiversity and ecology of the Earth’s most biodiverse and threatened terrestrial ecosystems has never been more important for their continued survival in the Anthropocene.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2025 · 2025-02

Due to global trade and travel, more and more species get introduced to new environments and may eventually become invasive. Invasive are the second biggest threat to global biodiversity. This project seeks to better understand the processes that underly successful plant invasions. We will use three Ambrosia species that have been introduced to Europe around the same time but very substantially in their invasion success. Ambrosia plants produce highly allergic pollen which are one of the main causes of hay fever and can substantially reduce crop yields when growing in agricultural field. Historical herbarium specimens will be used to investigate the invasion history, track changes over time, and infer genomic regions under selection. In addition, the leaf and root metagenome will be explored to infer associations between host and microbial community, and the role of beneficial and pathogenic microbes on invasion success. This hologenomic approach is at the cutting- edge of the field of evolutionary genomics. This project offers the unique opportunity to unravel the genomic and metagenomic basis of invasion that could be applied to other (potentially) invasive species and thus inform prevention and mitigation efforts.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-09

Tropical peatlands are one of our planet's most important, and most vulnerable, terrestrial carbon pools, storing over 100 billion tonnes of carbon. They provide ecosystem services and livelihoods for local communities. However, their large carbon stores and unique biodiversity are threatened by human pressures. In Southeast Asia, peatland destruction on a very large scale has been driven by drainage and conversion into oil palm and forestry plantations, while more intact peatlands in the Amazon and Congo basins are currently threatened by the expansion of commercial agriculture and new infrastructure development. Ecological and social studies have demonstrated that avoiding drainage and land use change in peatlands can conserve carbon stocks and mitigate the potentially significant releases of greenhouse gases, while, simultaneously, conservation and sustainable management can help to ensure the provision of products and services to local inhabitants who depend culturally and socioeconomically on peatlands. However, more effective dialogue and long-term relationships are needed between scientists and policymakers to ensure the use of scientific knowledge in public policy and to develop innovative funding strategies for conservation and reduction of carbon emissions due to peatland degradation and deforestation. Over the last decade, NERC-funded research based on collaborations among institutions in the UK, Amazonia and the Congo basin, has provided scientific evidence on the distribution of tropical peatlands, their unique biodiversity, and the quantity of carbon stored above and below ground. The most extensive peatlands of Amazonia are in Peru; these forested peatlands contain more than twice the carbon stocks of UK peatlands. Permanent forest census plots have been established following standard international protocols to monitor the forest dynamics and peatland resilience in the face of climate change. These data also provide information on the abundance of resources and 'health status' of natural forests that can be used to improve management plans for resource harvesting (e.g. harvest intensity). However, these high-quality peatland inventory and monitoring data are poorly integrated within policy making. Therefore, this KE fellowship aims to build on the unique network of partnerships developed by the applicant with stakeholders and users in Peru to translate ecological and social scientific knowledge on tropical peatlands generated by UK universities into policies and strategies to conserve and manage peatlands sustainably, and expand the reach of the impact across the tropics. Working with a range of organisations including Peru's Ministry of Environment and National Service of Protected Areas, the project will undertake activities designed to integrate existing scientific data into governmental decision-taking and policy development; develop and test new protocols to facilitate monitoring of peatland ecosystems by government and private companies; and exchange knowledge and understanding with stakeholders and end-users in other peat-rich tropical countries.

UKRI Gateway to Research · FY 2024 · 2024-08

Kew's gardens, collections and research offer extraordinary opportunities to artists. Informed by an analysis of selected arts collaborations at the Royal Botanic Gardens Kew since the 1960s, 'Future Ecologies of Art' is the first interdisciplinary project that explores Kew's potential to work with artists on diverse and inclusive storytelling about two specific issues: the climate crisis and social justice. Increasingly botanic gardens are turning to artists to create links between scientists, horticulturalists and the public in order to expand their narratives. The project traces these developments and proposes to take botanic gardens seriously as sites of experimental artistic research and engagement. It emphasises the power of artists to capture imaginations, advance alternative and interdisciplinary forms of knowledge-creation and inspire audiences. The project maps arts collaborations, their evaluations and learnings at Kew via interviews with artists, curators, archivists and scientists as well as through archival research. In this context, it asks how diversifying access to collections and centring artists from marginalised backgrounds can feed into future arts projects. Here it places particular emphasis on investigating - with artists and researchers at Kew - how the increasingly urgent themes of the climate crisis and social justice can be mediated by artistic practices and support Kew's mission to protect plants and fungi for the wellbeing of people and all future life on the planet. The project investigates how art can build bridges between disciplines and audiences in the context of the botanic garden to give visibility to the climate crisis and social justice. It is structured in three phases, (1) an initial phase of scouting interviews, strategy and literature analysis, (2) a research development phase including interviews with Kew staff and artists who have worked with a range of botanical organisations (3) a public outcomes phase which will see two teaching collaborations with UK universities (the MA Art and Ecology at Goldsmiths and the BA Fine Art at Chelsea College of Art), two workshops, two journal articles and a best practice report for Kew. Throughout each phase it is also informed by a placement with the Royal Botanic Gardens Edinburgh to explore its arts strategy, broken down into three one-month research stays. The project is situated in the interdisciplinary Plant Humanities and dialogues with museum and heritage studies, particularly a recent focus on diversity, equity and inclusion. It also responds to recent developments in contemporary art theory and art history, especially current turns to ecology and social justice in art practice and a cultural climate in art institutions where artists globally critically engage with plants. It takes seriously Kew's recent commitment to arts collaborations which was highlighted in Kew's Manifesto for Change (2021) aiming to bring together artists and scientists to explore storytelling; and in the current Science Strategy (2021) as a commitment to arts collaborations as societal bridges. The project is conceived around the following research question: Drawing from Kew's history of arts collaborations, how can present and future artistic collaborations support GLAM sector organisations to explore diverse storytelling around the themes of climate crisis and social justice? It is further structured around these guiding questions: - How have official collaborations between Kew and artists evolved and been evaluated since 1960? What have been avenues for informal collaborations? - How can Kew encourage artists from marginalised backgrounds to work with collections? - How can art collaborations strengthen Kew's mission and advance interdisciplinary forms of knowledge-creation? - What roles can artists take in botanical research organisations to interpret collections for different audiences, and how can these translate to teaching materials?