Professor Justin Borevitz
Areas of expertise
- Genetics 0604
- Plant Biology 0607
- Evolutionary Biology 0603
- Ecology 0602
- Soil Sciences 0503
- Forestry Sciences 0705
- Crop And Pasture Production 0703
Research interests
Land use and carbon drawdown capacity of agriculutre and forestry
Food and Environmental Security
Biography
Justin Borevitz obtained his PhD in 2002 from the University of California at San Diego with Joanne Chory dissecting the genetic basis of adaptive traits and environmental responce in model plants. He performed postdoctoral research with Joseph Ecker (2002-2004) at the Salk Institute mapping plant functional genomic diversity. From 2004 until 2011 he was an assistant and associate professor in the Departent of Ecology and Evolution at the University of Chicago. Research first demonstrated Genome Wide Association Studies in plants and next generation sequencing in emerging crop and foundation species. In 2012, Borevitz moved to ANU and became Professor in 2014. His current work within the Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology is using Landscape Genomics to select the gene variants underlying adaptation to shifting climates and soils for restoration of global crops and woodlands.
Researcher's projects
Genetics of climate adaptation in plants
A major interest of the lab is the genetic basiss of adaptation to regional climates with altered growing seasons. Quantitative and population genetic approaches in Arabidopsis, Brachypodium, Pelargonium, and Eucalypts are being used to genetically dissect adaptive traits. What genes and what alleles explain differential survival of seedlings and reproductive success under typical conditions experienced in the field? Are these new variants or new combinations of existing polymorphisms? Advanced Genomic and Phenomic approaches bring unprecedented power and speed to this work.
Genomic and Phenomic approaches to Landscape Restoration
2nd and 3rd genertaion sequencing are providing genomic data for complete populations (1000s of individuals). New computational approaches (kWIP..) to process this data in an unbiased way reveal both population structure guiding conservation and haplotype analysis guiding selection. Genome Wide Association Studies and Landscape Genomics allow prediction of adaptive traits in target environments. This can guide seed sorcing for large scale restoration experiments. Landscape Phenomics at sites such as the National Arboretum is providing high resolution and high throughput phenotyping while recording dynamic environmental conditions in order to predict biomass growth and reproductive phenology at the forest level.
Plant Energy Biology (Centre of Excellence)
Improving the efficiency of plant solar energy capture, use and yield, is a necessary solution to the increasing demand on finite land, water, and nutrient resources. Increasing environmental challenges adversely affect growth efficiency and further perturb plant energy balance among capture and use, affecting yield. We take a novel approach to improve sustainable yield by optimizing the overall energy efficiency of metabolism, transport, and plant development. We will discover networks of gene variants, signaling pathways and molecular mechanisms that regulate energy efficiency under limiting and fluctuating conditions. This approach will provide a basis for sustainable productivity of crops and future-proof plants in changing climates.
Available student projects
Landscape Gen2Phenomics for Climate Intervention.
manage, model, map & mitagate global drawdown solutions to climate
Publications
- Wilson, P, Streich, J, Murray, K et al. 2019, 'Global diversity of the Brachypodium species complex as a resource for genome-wide association studies demonstrated for agronomic traits in response to climate', Genetics (online), vol. 211, no. 1, pp. 317-331.
- Taghavi Namin, S, Esmaeilzadeh Fereydani, M, Najafi, M et al. 2018, 'Deep phenotyping: Deep learning for temporal phenotype/genotype classification', Plant Methods, vol. 14, no. 66, pp. 1-14pp.
- Supple, M, Bragg, J, Broadhurst, L et al. 2018, 'Landscape genomic prediction for restoration of a Eucalyptus foundation species under climate change', eLife, vol. 7, pp. e31835(22pp).
- Hoffmann, A, Griffin, P, Dillon, S et al 2015, 'A framework for incorporating evolutionary genomics into biodiversity conservation and management', Climate Change Responses, vol. 2, no. 1, pp. 1-23.
- Bragg, J, Supple, M, Andrew, R et al 2015, 'Genomic variation across landscapes: Insights and applications', New Phytologist, vol. 207, no. 4, pp. 953-967pp.
- Rivers, J, Warthmann, N, Pogson, B et al 2015, 'Genomic breeding for food, environment and livelihoods', Food Security, vol. 7, no. 2, pp. 375-382.
- GRABOWSKI, P, Morris, G, Casler, M et al 2014, 'Population genomic variation reveals roles of history, adaptation and ploidy in switchgrass', Molecular Ecology, vol. 23, no. 16, pp. 4059-4073.
- Brown, T, Cheng, R, Sirault, X et al 2014, 'TraitCapture: genomic and environment modelling of plant phenomic data', Current Opinion in Plant Biology, vol. 18, pp. 73-79.
- Genetic Variation for Life History Sensitivity to Seasonal Warming in Arabidopsis thaliana. Li Y, Cheng R, Spokas KA, Palmer AA, Borevitz JO. Genetics. 2014 Feb;196(2):569-77.
- Eichten , S & Borevitz, J 2013, 'EPIGENOMICS Methylation's mark on inheritance', Nature, vol. 495, no. 7440, pp. 181-182.
- Horton, M, Hancock, A, Huang, Y et al 2012, 'Genome-wide patterns of genetic variation in worldwide Arabidopsis thaliana accessions from the RegMap panel', Nature Genetics, vol. 44, no. 2, pp. 212-216.
- Glover, J, Reganold, J, Bell, L et al 2010, 'Increased Food and Ecosystem Security via Perennial Grains', Agriculture, vol. 328, no. 5986, pp. 1638-1639.
- Platt, A, Horton, M, Huang, Y et al 2010, 'The scale of population structure in Arabidopsis thaliana', PLoS Genetics, vol. 6, no. 2, pp. e1000843-e1000843.
- Li, Y, Huang, Y, Bergelson, J et al 2010, 'Association mapping of local climate-sensitive quantitative trait loci in Arabidopsis thaliana', PNAS - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, vol. 107, no. 49, pp. 21199-21204.
- Li Y, Huang Y, Bergelson J, Nordborg M, Borevitz JO. Association mapping of local climate-sensitive quantitative trait loci in Arabidopsis thaliana. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2010 Dec 7;107(49):21199-204. Epub 2010 Nov 15. PubMed PMID: 21078970; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC3000268.
- Brachi, B, Morris, G & Borevitz, J 2011, 'Genome-wide association studies in plants: the missing heritability is in the field', Genome Biology, vol. 12, no. 10, p. 8.
Projects and Grants
Grants information is drawn from ARIES. To add or update Projects or Grants information please contact your College Research Office.
- Optimising plant populations for ecological restoration and resilience (Secondary Investigator)
- Australian Mountain Environmental Research Infrastructure Facility (Secondary Investigator)
- Survey of NETs and their relevance to climate change mitigation policies in Australia (Secondary Investigator)
- Grain Phenomics Climate Facility (Primary Investigator)
- Improving yield by optimising energy use efficiency (Secondary Investigator)
- Genomic signatures of adaptive diversification in woodland Eucalyptus (Secondary Investigator)
- ARC Centre of Excellence in Plant Energy Biology (Secondary Investigator)
- Landscape restoration genomics for climate adaptation in Eucalyptus foundation species (Primary Investigator)