Department of Botany & Plant Sciences

A new study casts doubt on drought as the driver of ancient Mayan civilization collapse. There is no dispute that a series of droughts occurred in the Yucatan Peninsula of southeastern Mexico and northern Central America at the end of...

A $1.5 million emergency grant is enabling UC Riverside scientists to find plants impervious to a disease threatening America’s citrus fruit supply. Citrus Greening Disease — also known as Huanglongbing, or HLB — results in fruit that is bitter and...

team of researchers led by UC Riverside has demonstrated for the first time one way that a small molecule turns a single cell into something as large as a tree. For half a century, scientists have known that all plants...

Picking fruit at the University of California, Riverside, is a singular experience. In the Citrus Variety Collection’s orchard, researchers walk among trees bearing oranges, lemons, and limes of all shapes and sizes, from spindly to oblong, bumpy to smooth, huge...

Scientists have figured out how plants respond to light and can flip this genetic switch to encourage food growth. The discovery could help increase food supply for an expanding population with shrinking opportunities for farming. The research on this genetic...

Seeds that would otherwise lie dormant will spring to life with the aid of a new chemical discovered by a UC Riverside-led team. Plants have the ability to perceive drought. When they do, they emit a hormone that helps them...

The future of vaccines may look more like eating a salad than getting a shot in the arm. UC Riverside scientists are studying whether they can turn edible plants like lettuce into mRNA vaccine factories. Messenger RNA or mRNA technology...

Name: Alejandro (Alex) Cortez Undergraduate Education: University of California, Riverside, Bachelor of Science in Biology and Psychology minor (2002) Graduate Education: University of California, Riverside, Master of Science in Evolution, Ecology. and Organismal Biology (2009) Hometown: Guadalajara, Mexico and Riverside...

Janet Franklin, a distinguished professor of biogeography in the Department of Botany and Plant Sciences, has been named a recipient of the 2021 Distinguished Landscape Ecologist Award by the North American Chapter of the International Association for Landscape Ecology. Janet...

Barley is important for more than beer. A UC Riverside geneticist has won $1.7 million to study how one of the world’s staple foods might survive climate change. The National Science Foundation CAREER Award to Daniel Koenig, an assistant professor...