Stuart A Campbell

Biography

Independent Research Fellow at the P3 Centre, Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, UK (2016‒present) Banting Fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Canada (2013‒2016) EEB Postdoctoral Fellow in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, Canada (2013‒2014) Postdoctoral Associate in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, USA (2012‒2013) PhD Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Cornell University, USA (2005‒2012)

Research Interest

My research focuses on the evolution and ecology of: (1) plant defence against herbivores, and (2) plant reproduction. I am particularly interested in how reproductive variation alters the causes and strength of natural selection, and in the origins of plant defensive and reproductive diversity. My primary study organisms are wild species of Solanaceae (wild tomato, potato, tobacco, etc.) and Arabidopsis lyrata (Brassicaceae), and the various insects that consume and/or pollinate them. A major focus of my current research is on one of the most frequent and widespread evolutionary transitions in plants: the transition from an outcrossing to a self-fertilising mating system. Recently, I have been studying adaptive evolution during the shift to selfing using a combination of population genomics, chemical phenotyping and fieldwork, as an independent Banting Fellow (NSERC, Canada). Prior to this I investigated the evolution of defence under selfing and outcrossing mating systems, considering natural selection by both herbivores and pollinators. I seek to expand this research program as a P3 Fellow at the University of Sheffield.