Rate My Professor Mark Chapman

Professor Mark Chapman is a Professor in Ecology and Evolution in the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Southampton. He earned his PhD through a Natural Environment Research Council-funded program at the University of St Andrews from 2000 to 2004, supervised by Professor Richard J. Abbott, and completed a Postgraduate Certificate of Academic Practice at the University of Southampton from 2013 to 2015. Chapman's career trajectory includes postdoctoral research associate positions at Vanderbilt University and the University of Georgia from 2004 to 2010 under Professor John M. Burke, followed by a postdoctoral role at the University of Oxford from 2011 to 2013 supervised by Professor Dmitry Filatov. He joined the University of Southampton in June 2013 as a Lecturer in Ecology and Evolution, advancing to Associate Professor in May 2019 and to full Professor in August 2024. Additionally, he has coordinated the Centre for Underutilised Crops since October 2014 and served as Faculty lead for the Concordat Working Group from June 2016 to January 2023. Chapman leads the Plants and Food Security research theme and is a member of the Precision Biosciences Innovation Hub, Institute for Life Sciences, and Ecology and Evolution groups.

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.