Rate My Professor Mark Chapman

Chapman's research specializations encompass novel and underutilised crops for climate change resilience and food security, the genomic bases of speciation and hybridisation, and domestication genomics. His projects include the active NUCNet: the Novel and Underutilised Crop Network and Integrating 'omic data to advance underutilised crops for food security. Completed initiatives feature Improving the identification of genomic variants in crops and its application to alleviate food insecurity funded by the Royal Society, Genome resources for a new agronomic and evolutionary model, Climate Change in Rice: Genomics of adaptation to climate change in rice, Plant Speciation: Identification analysis of speciation genes in island plants, and Genomic constraints on domestication: Why are so few species domesticated. Key publications comprise 'Exceptionally low genomic diversity in the underutilised legume Kersting's groundnut' in Nature Communications (2025), ''Domesticability' were some species predisposed for domestication?' in Trends in Ecology & Evolution (2025), 'Genomic changes and stabilization following homoploid hybrid speciation of the Oxford ragwort Senecio squalidus' in Current Biology (2024), 'A well-resolved phylogeny of Epilobium (Onagraceae) taxa in the British Isles finds no correlation between genomic divergence and the outcome of hybridisation' in Plant Ecology and Diversity (2025), and 'Genetic variation and synonymous cultivars in the USDA lychee (Litchi chinensis Sonn.) collection assessed using genome-wide SNPs' in Genetic Resources and Crop Evolution (2025). His contributions advance genomic resources and understanding of adaptive evolution in plants, supporting food security amid environmental challenges.