UBC Centre for Plant Research
Faculty and Research Scientists | Postgraduate Opportunities | Research Areas | Plant Science Grad Student Society
Welcome to the UBC Centre for Plant Research, located in Vancouver, Canada. Our research mission is to explore, explain and maintain plant life on Earth.
The Centre for Plant Research is associated with the UBC Botanical Garden.
Research Themes
The main research themes are:
- evolution and biodiversity (including molecular systematics)
- plant physiology and biotic interactions
- phytochemistry
- evolutionary genomics (including the evolution of plant development - "evodevo")
- plant biotechnology and breeding
Living Material
The main role of a University botanic garden is to facilitate scientific research and education using living plants. The University of British Columbia Botanical Garden has the second largest living plant collection in Canada, providing well-documented and well-maintained materials for research and teaching.
The significant research collections include Acer, Clematis, Cornus, Epimedium, hardy Eucalyptus, Hebe, Lardizabalaceae, Lindera, Magnolia, Populus, Rhododendron, Sorbus, Styracaceae, BC native flora, alpines and Chinese flora.
Plant Adaptation Science
One unifying theme of the University of British Columbia Botanical Garden and Centre for Plant Research is the study of "plant adaptation." Adaptation is broadly defined as the fitness of a plant in its environment. More specifically it often refers to the complex process whereby combinations of alleles are selected which optimise growth and reproduction in specific environments. It is the basis of 'provenance' in forestry and, when artificially selected, of breeding in agriculture and horticulture. It is central to ecosystem function and to species differences in evolution. The complex nature of adaptive evolution has until now prevented progress on understanding how fitness peaks are achieved and maintained. However, the advent of complete genome sequences of several plant species (Arabidopsis and rice; shortly poplar, Medicago and Lotus) will allow genetic, and even genome-wide, studies of adaptive evolution to be taken into the field. The capacity of plants to respond to environmental change such as pollution may be very rapid, as in metal or herbicide tolerant grasses, but it is less clear whether adaptive responses to climate change (particularly warming temperatures) are likely on the timescales of current climate change predictions. Constraints on plant adaptation will place limits on crop improvement and, possibly, limits on the nature of yield increases from genetic modification. The theoretical challenges implicit in understanding plant adaptation are particularly relevant in Canada, reliant as it is on agricultural and forest production, yet experiencing extremes of climate and likely to experience the effects of climatic change early. Natural adaptive variation has potential in the biotechnology sector: for instance naturally occurring ecotypes from polluted or highly metalliferous soils are being developed in many parts of the world for biopanning and bioremediation.
