Editors for Plant Biology

We aim to review research in all areas of plant biology, from evolution and interaction with microbes to development and physiology, as well as epigenetics and genomics. Read the latest research in this subject area.

Senior editors

  1. Jürgen Kleine-Vehn

    University of Freiburg, Germany

    Jürgen is a Professor at the University of Freiburg. He obtained his PhD for his work on plant cell polarity at the Flemish Institute of Biotechnology (VIB) at the Ghent University. He has been an Associate Professor at the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna and is now full Professor and chair of Molecular Plant Physiology (MoPP) at the University of Freiburg. He works at the interface of quantitative plant cell biology and developmental plant genetics, addressing plant growth control at a subcellular to organ scale.

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Cell Biology
    Developmental Biology
    Research focus
    plant hormones
    growth control
    plant architecture
    Competing interests statement
    Jürgen Kleine-Vehn has received and profited from funding by the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung, Vienna Science and Technology Fund (WWTF), the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), the Austrian Academy of Sciences (OeAW), the European Research Council (ERC), the European Molecular Biology Organization (EMBO), and the German Research Foundation (DFG). He is on the editorial board of the International Journal of Molecular Science and on the advisory board of Review Commons (operated by EMBO). He has been an elected member of the Austrian Academy of Sciences (Young Curia).
  2. Sergio Rasmann

    University of Neuchâtel, Switzerland

    Sergio Rasmann is a plant chemical ecologist who obtained his PhD in 2006 from the University of Neuchâtel (Switzerland), during which he discovered that herbivore-damaged maize roots emit volatile signals in the soil that attract predatory nematodes near the site of wounding. After a post‐doc at Cornell University, a research fellowship at the University of Lausanne, and an assistant professorship at the University of California, Irvine, he is now Full Professor at the University of Neuchâtel, head of the Laboratory of Functional Ecology. His current research interests focus on addressing the mechanistic, ecological and evolutionary causes and consequences of chemically mediated interactions between plants and their biotic and abiotic environment. This broad theme is split into studying the effects of climate change on plant-herbivore interaction, improving biological control methods using beneficial microbes, and conservation biology practices. He has been awarded the early career award by the International Society of Chemical Ecology in 2014.

    Expertise
    Ecology
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    chemical ecology
    functional ecology
    community ecology
    soil science
    Competing interests statement
    Sergio has been receiving continuous funding mainly from the Swiss National Science Foundation, and occasionally from the European Union (Horizon 2020). He is an active member of several scientific commissions at the Swiss National Science Foundation, and at CITES. He is associate editor for Functional ecology, and Frontiers in Plant Science, and has served as Reviewing Editor for eLife.
  3. Meredith C Schuman

    University of Zurich, Switzerland

    Meredith Schuman (Merry) is an Assistant Professor in Spatial Genetics, Departments of Geography and Chemistry, University of Zurich and a member of the Remote Sensing Laboratories and the University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity at the University of Zurich. Her background is in the chemical ecology and functional genetics of plant interactions, and plant ecophysiology. She works on projects combining direct analyses of plant tissue, and remote sensing techniques with the aim of developing approaches to assess genetic and chemotypic variation, plasticity, and adaptive potential within plant species, and their interactions in the context of global change. She was previously a Group Leader in the Department of Molecular Ecology at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology (MPICE) in Jena and a Junior Group Leader in the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) on the ecological functions of plant genes.

    Expertise
    Ecology
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    chemical ecology
    spatial ecology
    plant interactions
    functional genetics
    intraspecific diversity
    Competing interests statement
    Merry's position and her research is currently supported by the NOMIS foundation (grant to Michael Schaepman, University of Zurich, project: Remotely Sensing Ecological Genomics) and the University of Zurich, including the Departments of Geography and Chemistry and the University Research Priority Program on Global Change and Biodiversity in which she is a PI. From November 2020 her work will also be funded by the European Commission Horizon 2020 program (UPSCALE consortium, grant number 861998, co-PI and work package lead).
  4. Detlef Weigel

    Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology, Germany

    Detlef Weigel received his PhD in 1988 from the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. After postdoctoral work at the California Institute of Technology, he joined the faculty of the Salk Institute in 1993. Since 2002, he has been director of the Department of Molecular Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology. His current research interests focus on natural genetic variation and evolutionary genomics of plants. Examples of recent important projects are the 1001 Genomes project for Arabidopsis thaliana, and the systematic dissection of deleterious epistasis between Arabidopsis strains due to autoimmunity. Among the awards he has received are the Young Investigator Award of the National Science Foundation, the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Award of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, and the Otto Bayer Award. He is a member of the US National Academy of Sciences, the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Royal Society.

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Evolutionary Biology
    Research focus
    plants
    genomics
    evolution
    genetic variation
    evolutionary genomics
    adaptation
    microbiome
    Experimental organism
    A. thaliana
    Competing interests statement
    Detlef Weigel has received funding from the Max Planck Society, the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, the Foundation of the State of Baden-Württemberg, the German Ministry for Education and Research, the European Commission, the Human Frontiers Science Program Organization, and several US Federal agencies. He serves on the Editorial Boards of Annual Review of Cell and Developmental Biology and Genome Biology. He is Chair of EMBO Council, and is serving or has recently served on the Advisory Boards of the Epigenomics of Plants International Consortium, Bayer Crop Science, The Arabidopsis Information Resource, Flanders Institute of Biotechnology, Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, and the Sainsbury Laboratory. He is a co-founder of Computomics and CeMet.

Reviewing editors

  1. Richard Amasino

    University of Wisconsin-Madison, United States

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Research focus
    plant development and epigenetics
    Experimental organism
    A. thaliana
    B. distachyon
  2. Rebecca Bart

    The Donald Danforth Plant Science Center, United States

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Research focus
    host-pathogen-environment interactions
    non-model organisms
    cassava
    Xanthomonas
    genetics
    genomics
  3. Yoselin Benitez-Alfonso

    University of Leeds, United Kingdom

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    cell-cell communication
    developmental signalling
    plasmodesmata
    cell wall structure
    biophysical properties
    medicago-rhizobia interaction
    Arabidopsis
  4. Dominique Bergmann

    Stanford University, United States

    Expertise
    Developmental Biology
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    asymmetric division
    cell fate
    stomata
    cell polarity
    Experimental organism
    A. thaliana
    Brachypodium
  5. Benjamin K Blackman

    University of California, Berkeley, United States

    Expertise
    Evolutionary Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    evolutionary genetics
    evolution of development
    phenotypic variation
    domestication
    local adaptation
    plant reproduction
  6. Gertraud Burger

    University of Montreal, Canada

    Expertise
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Genetics and Genomics
    Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    genomics
    transcriptomics
    proteomics
    bioinformatics
    microeukaryotes
    microbe-plant interactions
    eukaryotic evolution
  7. Paula Casati

    Center of Photosynthetic And Biochemical Studies (CEFOBI), Argentina

    Expertise
    Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    genome stability
    abiotic stress in plants
    chromatin remodelling
    cell cycle regulation
    flavonoid metabolism
  8. Vincent Castric

    Université de Lille, France

    Expertise
    Evolutionary Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    evolutionary genomics
    population genetics
    small regulatory RNAs
    mating systems
    transposable elements
    gene regulatory networks
    self-incompatibility
    receptor-ligand interaction
    Experimental organism
    Arabidopsis
  9. Paula Fernandez

    INTA, Argentina

    Expertise
    Genetics and Genomics
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    genomics
    system biology
    ecophysiology
    leaf senescence
    transcriptomics
    metabolomics
    phenomics
  10. Alexandre Fournier-Level

    The University of Melbourne, Australia

    Expertise
    Genetics and Genomics
    Plant Biology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Research focus
    natural variation
    quantitative genetics
    population genetics
    invasion
    weeds
    genomic prediction
  11. Merijn R Kant

    University of Amsterdam, Netherlands

    Expertise
    Ecology
    Plant Biology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Research focus
    plant defense
    biological control
    adaptation
    co-evolution
    pest formation
    effectors
    susceptibility
    resistance
    defense suppression
    Experimental organism
    insects
    mites
    plants
  12. Sang-Gyu Kim

    Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, South Korea

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    chemical ecology
    genome editing
    molecular ecology
    plant defense
    Experimental organism
    Arabidopsis
    Nicotiana
  13. David M Kramer

    Michigan State University, United States

    Expertise
    Biochemistry and Chemical Biology
    Plant Biology
    Physics of Living Systems
    Computational and Systems Biology
    Research focus
    photosynthesis
    bioenergetics
    electron and proton transfer
    computation
    phenotyping
    phenomics
  14. Pablo A Manavella

    Instituto de Agrobiotecnología del Litoral , Argentina

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Genetics and Genomics
    Developmental Biology
    Research focus
    small RNA
    microRNAs
    RNA biology
    chromatin
    epigenetics
    transposable elements
    gene silencing
    miRNA biogenesis
    Experimental organism
    A. thaliana
  15. Heather E McFarlane

    University of Toronto, Canada

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Cell Biology
    Research focus
    plant cell biology
    plant cell walls
    cell wall signalling
    protein trafficking
    secretion
    Golgi
    signal transduction
    Experimental organism
    A. thaliana
  16. Jacqueline Monaghan

    Queen's University, Canada

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    plant cell biology
    protein kinases
    signal transduction
    homeostasis
    E3 ubiquitin ligases
    Experimental organism
    A. thaliana
    N. benthamiana
  17. Mariela I Monteoliva

    Instituto Nacional de Tecnologia Agropecuaria, Argentina

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    plant-microbe interactions
    abiotic stress tolerance
    plant physiology
    drought tolerance
    proline metabolism
    redox status regulation
  18. Thabiso Motaung

    University of Pretoria, South Africa

    Expertise
    Cell Biology
    Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    biofilm formation
    extracelular vesicles
    antimicrobial resistance
    extracellular matrix
    plant pathology
    fungal biology
    host-pathogen interaction
  19. David A Paz-Garcia

    Centro de Investigaciones Biológicas del Noroeste (CIBNOR), Mexico

    Expertise
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Computational and Systems Biology
    Ecology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    marine life
    coral reefs
    phylogenomics
    population genomics
    morphometrics
    gene expression
    statistics
    coding
  20. Paul Rainey

    Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Biology, Germany

    Expertise
    Ecology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    adaptive radiation
    evolution of individuality
    evolutionary genetics
    ecological genetics
    emergence of infectious diseases
    forecasting evolution
  21. Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra

    University of California, Davis, United States

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Genetics and Genomics
    Research focus
    evolutionary genetics
    domestication
    local adaptation
    transposable elements
  22. Bernhard Schmid

    University of Zurich, Switzerland

    Expertise
    Ecology
    Plant Biology
    Evolutionary Biology
    Research focus
    plant ecology
    evolutionary ecology
    biodiversity
    ecosystem functioning
    community ecology
    experimental ecology
    Experimental organism
    seed plants
    grassland
    forest
  23. Pil Joon Seo

    Sungkyunkwan University, South Korea

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    epigenetics
    circadian clocks
    plant regeneration
    stress response
    temperature response
    Experimental organism
    Arabidopsis
  24. Kenichi Tsuda

    Huazhong Agricultural University, China

    Expertise
    Plant Biology
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Genetics and Genomics
    Microbiology and Infectious Disease
    Research focus
    plant immunity
    phytohormones
    pathogen
    microbiome
    transcriptome
    Experimental organism
    maize
    Arabidopsis
    Pseudomonas
    xanthomonas
  25. Hao Yu

    National University of Singapore & Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory, Singapore

    Expertise
    Genetics and Genomics
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    functional genomics
    plant reproductive development
    phytohormone signalling
    Experimental organism
    rice
    orchid
    A. thaliana
  26. Daniel Zilberman

    John Innes Centre, United Kingdom

    Expertise
    Chromosomes and Gene Expression
    Genetics and Genomics
    Plant Biology
    Research focus
    DNA methylation
    chromatin
    epigenetics
    epigenomics
    evolution
    Experimental organism
    rice
    A. thaliana