Economic botany has a long history in colonial South Asia. From the late 18th century the region became an important site for the institutionalisation of economic botany with the establishment of botanic gardens, 'improving' farms, plantations (e.g., opium, indigo, tea), and a range of agrarian research institutes. However, economic botany in colonial South Asia is largely seen as an initiative emanating from the imperial centre in which South Asians played an unequal, peripheral, and coerced (essentially labouring) role. This fellowship aims to reframe this understanding of South Asian participation and involvement with economic botany in colonial South Asia. The proposed research will explore the ways in which the South Asian contribution to colonial economic botany went beyond translators, scribes, illustrators, or plantation labourers. Instead, the fellowship aims to demonstrate how a wide range of South Asians, most notably landowners with estates of various sizes; merchants; Indian capitalists; and different sections of the emerging middle class were involved in varying degrees with these imperial initiatives for various reasons including a genuine belief in 'improving' agriculture, to the evident material benefits to be accrued from plantations. At a related level, the fellowship will also underline how this South Asian involvement mediated and shaped the agrarian economy of the region in hitherto unexamined ways. The nature and scale of South Asian participation in colonial economic botany will be explored by analysing a wide range of collections (including botanical specimens and artefacts) and records spread over three sites - RBG Kew; the British Library; and the archive of the AJC Bose Indian Botanic Garden in Kolkata. Additionally, the fellowship will draw upon the Fellow's native fluency in Bengali and Hindi to examine non-English sources, including scientific and non-scientific publications, letters, memoirs, and newspapers etc., to enrich current understandings of the multiple forms of South Asian participation in economic botany. By exploring South Asians' participation in shaping the outcomes of an imperial initiative, this fellowship will demonstrate the complex and negotiated nature of the transfer of scientific knowledge in a colonial milieu. Equally relevantly, the fellowship will provide an empirically rich, and historically informed narrative to support current research and conservation initiatives in contemporary South Asia by offering a long-term view of local influences in shaping the natural environment in the region. Lastly, the proposed research will make a major contribution towards diversifying the narratives associated with collections-based research in the UK by illustrating the various registers through which colonised peoples participated and shaped imperial interventions.

Due to global trade and travel, more and more species get introduced to new environments and may eventually become invasive. Invasive are the second biggest threat to global biodiversity. This project seeks to better understand the processes that underly successful plant invasions. We will use three Ambrosia species that have been introduced to Europe around the same time but very substantially in their invasion success. Ambrosia plants produce highly allergic pollen which are one of the main causes of hay fever and can substantially reduce crop yields when growing in agricultural field. Historical herbarium specimens will be used to investigate the invasion history, track changes over time, and infer genomic regions under selection. In addition, the leaf and root metagenome will be explored to infer associations between host and microbial community, and the role of beneficial and pathogenic microbes on invasion success. This hologenomic approach is at the cutting- edge of the field of evolutionary genomics. This project offers the unique opportunity to unravel the genomic and metagenomic basis of invasion that could be applied to other (potentially) invasive species and thus inform prevention and mitigation efforts.

Tropical peatlands are one of our planet's most important, and most vulnerable, terrestrial carbon pools, storing over 100 billion tonnes of carbon. They provide ecosystem services and livelihoods for local communities. However, their large carbon stores and unique biodiversity are threatened by human pressures. In Southeast Asia, peatland destruction on a very large scale has been driven by drainage and conversion into oil palm and forestry plantations, while more intact peatlands in the Amazon and Congo basins are currently threatened by the expansion of commercial agriculture and new infrastructure development. Ecological and social studies have demonstrated that avoiding drainage and land use change in peatlands can conserve carbon stocks and mitigate the potentially significant releases of greenhouse gases, while, simultaneously, conservation and sustainable management can help to ensure the provision of products and services to local inhabitants who depend culturally and socioeconomically on peatlands. However, more effective dialogue and long-term relationships are needed between scientists and policymakers to ensure the use of scientific knowledge in public policy and to develop innovative funding strategies for conservation and reduction of carbon emissions due to peatland degradation and deforestation. Over the last decade, NERC-funded research based on collaborations among institutions in the UK, Amazonia and the Congo basin, has provided scientific evidence on the distribution of tropical peatlands, their unique biodiversity, and the quantity of carbon stored above and below ground. The most extensive peatlands of Amazonia are in Peru; these forested peatlands contain more than twice the carbon stocks of UK peatlands. Permanent forest census plots have been established following standard international protocols to monitor the forest dynamics and peatland resilience in the face of climate change. These data also provide information on the abundance of resources and 'health status' of natural forests that can be used to improve management plans for resource harvesting (e.g. harvest intensity). However, these high-quality peatland inventory and monitoring data are poorly integrated within policy making. Therefore, this KE fellowship aims to build on the unique network of partnerships developed by the applicant with stakeholders and users in Peru to translate ecological and social scientific knowledge on tropical peatlands generated by UK universities into policies and strategies to conserve and manage peatlands sustainably, and expand the reach of the impact across the tropics. Working with a range of organisations including Peru's Ministry of Environment and National Service of Protected Areas, the project will undertake activities designed to integrate existing scientific data into governmental decision-taking and policy development; develop and test new protocols to facilitate monitoring of peatland ecosystems by government and private companies; and exchange knowledge and understanding with stakeholders and end-users in other peat-rich tropical countries.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.