Catherine Kidner's Staff Page


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Staff Page: Catherine Kidner

Email: catherine.kidner@ed.ac.uk	Telephone: +44 131 552 2838 (IMPS) or 651 3316 (RBGE)	Fax: +44 131 650 5392
Group Members:Dr Keith Gardner, Saima Umbreen, Nikki Burton-Harrison, Mobina Shaukat Ali, Alex Twyford
Lab Website: http://www.rbge.org.uk/science/tropical-diversity/evolutionary-development/leaf-shape-in-begonia

Career:

Year	Description
2004	Lecturer, University of Edinburgh/ Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh
1997-2004	Post Doctoral Fellow, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories, New York
1997	PhD, John Innes Institute, Norwich

Teaching:

Evolution and Ecology of Plants 3
Angiosperm Evolution (Plant Sciences 4)
The Evolution of Plant Development, The Curcurbitales (MSc. Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants)
Steering Committee (MSc. Biodiversity and Taxonomy of Plants)
PhD co-ordinator RBGE

Research Interests:

My interest is in the genetic basis of diversity in plant form. I am a joint appointment with the Royal Botanic Gardens, Edinburgh where I am part of the Tropical Diversity Group. We are using Begonia Section Gireoudia as a model system to understand how tropical diversity has evolved and is maintained. Section Gireoudia is a group of about 66 American Begonia species, very variable in form and including many examples of convergent evolution, which makes it an excellent system to study the evolution of development. Our main focus is on leaf shape. Genes controlling leaf form have been isolated in several model species. We are cloning these genes from Begonia and using genetic association and expression analysis to determine if they are important in generating the variety of leaf forms we see in our species. To discover the genetic architecture of the differences between species - how many genes are involved in each trait, how strong their effects are and where the genes are, we are developing a genetic map using an F1 backcross population of B. plebeja (a widespread species of dry tropical forests) and B. conchifolia (a species found only in wet tropical forest in Costa-Rica and Panama). We are also generating a dated phylogeny to discover how Section Gireoudia evolved and spread from South America to Central America and Mexico.

The variation in leaf form in Begonia section Gireoudia

Selected Publications:

2007

Catherine Kidner (2007) Leaf evolution: working with what's to hand. Evol Dev. 9:321-2.

2006

Catherine Kidner and Marja Timmermans (2006c) Mixing and matching pathways in

leaf polarity. Curr Opp Pl. Sci 2007 10:13-20.

Sophie Neale, Will Goodall-Copespeak and Catherine Kidner (2006b) The Evolution of Diversity in Begonia. In: ‘Floriculture, Ornamental and Plant Biotechnology: Advances and Topical Issues’. J. A. Teixeira da Silva (Ed.) Global Science Books

Catherine Kidner and Marja Timmermans (2006a). In situ hybridization as a tool to

study the role of miRNAs in plant development. In: ‘MicroRNA protocols’ Methods in Molecular Biology. Shao-Yao Ying (Ed). Humana press Inc.

2005

Catherine Kidner and Robert Martienssen (2005b) The role of ARGONAUTE1

(AGO1) in meristem formation and identity. Developmental Biology 280:504-17

Catherine Kidner and Robert Martienssen (2005a). The developmental role of

microRNA in plants. Curr Opin Plant Biol. 8:38-44.

2004

Catherine Kidner and Robert Martienssen (2004) Spatially restricted microRNA directs leaf polarity via ARGONAUTE1. Nature. 428:81-4

2003

Mary E. Byrne, Catherine A. Kidner and Robert A. Martienssen (2003) Plant stem

cells: divergent pathways and common themes in shoots and roots. Curr. Opin .

Genet. Dev.. 5:551-7.

2002

Catherine Kidner, Marja Timmermans, Mary Byrne, and Robert Martienssen. (2002)

Developmental Genetics of the Angiosperm Leaf. Advances in Botanical Research

Vol 38: 192-234

Tom Volpe, Catherine Kidner, Ira Hall, Grace Teng, Shiv Grewel and Robert

Martienssen. (2002) Regulation of Heterochromatic Silencing and Histone H3

Lysine-9 Methylation by RNAi. Science. 297: 1833-1837.