Dr Edwige Moyroud
The Sainsbury Laboratory University of Cambridge (SLCU), UK
“One size fits all? Development & Evolution of petal patterns in Hibiscus flowers”
Plants are expert architects that control cell proliferation and differentiation with exquisite
spatiotemporal resolution to produce a diversity of shapes and forms. The colourful patterns
on the petals of flowering plants perfectly illustrate their engineering skills. These patterns
are also functionally relevant: they can protect pollen grains from UV radiation and act as
communication devices to attract pollinators. Petal pattern are often highly elaborated and
combine differences in pigmentation, cell shape and texture to generate neighbouring tissues
with distinct appearances. However, the mechanisms used to program cell behaviour in a
coordinated fashion across the epidermis of a developing petal are not well understood. I will
present some results our group obtained while investigating pattern formation and evolution
using a small species of Hibiscus and its close relatives as a model system. Our results help
us understand how plants can set-up boundaries within the petal epidermis and how evolution
tinkers with these processes to generate the diversity of patterns observed in nature.
Bio
I am a molecular and cell biologist specialising in plant development and evolution. During
my PhD (Cell & Plant Physiology Laboratory, Grenoble, France) I studied a central regulator
of flower development, linked with the emergence of flowering plants. I joined the
Department of Plant Sciences in Cambridge (UK) as a post-doctoral fellow to understand
how plants can produce iridescence and how pollinators respond to such optical cues. I
started my group at the Sainsbury Laboratory in Cambridge (UK) five years ago to
investigate the formation and evolution of patterns on petals. I lecture in the Department of
Genetics and I am the Nicolli Fellow in Natural Sciences at Queens’ College. In parallel, I
lead several outreach initiatives to make science more inclusive and accessible to a wider
society. I received the Bicentenary Medal of the Linnean Society (2018) and was awarded a
Plant Journal Fellowship for new investigator (2020).
If anyone is interested in meeting with the speaker, please contact Cristina Ferrandiz
