PhD theses

PhD theses

Theses written by Kew Science PhD students, supervised or co-supervised by at least one Kew scientist.

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    Heterogeneous cloth: an ethnography of the coming into being of barkcloth artefacts at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and amongst the Nuaulu of Nua Nea Village, Maluku, Eastern Indonesia.
    (2017-10)
    Brennan, Emily
    5. Abstract This thesis uses barkcloth artefacts as a methodological point of entry and fieldsite, to explore their material properties. It argues that the material properties of barkcloth artefacts are indexical of social relations, as it moves between contexts; exploring the nature of properties as inherently diverse or diversely exploited, rather than homogenously embedded. The thesis argues that properties are processual, and uses the operational sequence or chaîne opératoire as a route to beginning to unpack the attribution of these qualities. The thesis follows the material through two distinct contexts; beginning with a collection of barkcloth artefacts in the Economic Botany Collection, at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew. Here artefacts illustrate the relationship between people and plants through technical process; and are packed within the botanical episteme and a British history of material relations, exploitation and development. From within the collections store, laboratory, and herbarium at Kew, material origins and structure are foregrounded as inherent to material identity. From Kew, research relocates to Maluku in eastern Indonesia; to a region situated historically as foundational in the exploitation of plant ‘resources’ and botanical exploration. Thematically then, the region is congruous with the Kew context. Nuaulu barkcloth artefacts, as explored in Nua Nea village, on Seram island are efficacious in male life-transformation rituals, and clan constitution. Barkcloth properties are generative and contingent. The efficacy of these artefacts is inseparable from the proximal dynamics as managed through their ongoing coming into being: bodily, temporal and territorial. A processual approach to barkcloth artefacts’ material properties across contexts allows access to the nature and diversity of the relationships between humans and non-humans: in this case, with plants, and trees. This is in what plant materials are able to reflect back at us, as transformed living kinds.
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    Boraginaceae Varronia rupicola (Urb.) Brtton : biogeography, systematic placement and conservation genetics of a threatened species endemic to the Caribbean.
    (2016)
    Hamilton, Martin Allen
    In the Caribbean region, Varronia rupicola (Boraginaceae) is a medium to large, woody shrub endemic to the Puerto Rican Bank where it is threatened with extinction due to its limited area of occupancy, small populations and on-going threats. The greatest of these is currently loss of suitable habitat through development and degradation. These are caused by human activities that are expected to continue and possibly worsen. The species is also threatened by sea level rise and drought as well as natural disasters, particularly hurricanes and tsunamis. Combined, the effects of anthropogenic and climate change induced threats could push the species to extinction over the coming century. Through interrogation of the findings of cyto-, phylo- and population genetic as well as biogeographical research, it is clear that V. rupicola is a distinct species that is endemic to the islands of Puerto Rico, Vieques and Anegada where five populations were detected. The species has lost genetic diversity in the wild through a reduction in population size with allelic diversity proportional to the size of the population. The five populations were found to have lower than expected levels of heterozygosity as well as significant genetic differentiation and inbreeding. Varronia rupicola plants were found in an extremely limited area of intact habitat (<90 km2) overlying substrates that cover <200 km2 across the three islands. Protected areas contain less than a third (<30 km2) of the remaining intact habitat that supports the species and established ex-situ collections capture less than half of the private alleles found in the wild. An integrated approach to the species conservation is needed to maximise genetic diversity and potentiality allow adaptation of V. rupicola to environmental change and new threats.
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    Phylogenetics, genome size evolution and population genetics of slipper orchids in the subfamily Cypripedioideae (Orchidaceae).
    (2014-01)
    Chochai, Araya
    Slipper orchids (subfamily Cypripedioideae) comprise five genera; Paphiopedilum, Cypripedium, Phragmipedium, Selenipedium, and Mexipedium. Phylogenetic relationships of the genus Paphiopedilum, were studied using nuclear ribosomal ITS and plastid sequence data. The results confirm that Paphiopedilum is monophyletic and support the division of the genus into three subgenera Parvisepalum, Brachypetalum and Paphiopedilum. Four sections of subgenus Paphiop edilum (Pardalopetalum, Cochlopetalum, Paphiopedilum and Barbata) are recovered with strong support for monophyly, concurring with a recent infrageneric treatment. Section Coryopedilum is also recovered with low bootstrap but high posterior probability values. Relationships in Barbata remain unresolved, with short branch lengths and narrow geographical distributions suggesting it may have undergone rapid radiation. Genome sizes were measured for seven taxa in Paphiopedilum and chromosome and genome size data mapped onto the phylogenetic framework, showing no clear trend in increase in chromosome number in the genus. The diploid chromosome number of 2n = 26 in subgenera Parvisepalum and Brachypetalum suggests it is the ancestral condition, with higher chromosome numbers in Cochlopetalum and Barbata pointing to centric fission possibly having occurred independently in these sections. Although species in Barbata have larger genome sizes than other sections, any trend of genome size evolution remains unclear in the genus. Eight primer pairs for plastid microsatellites were designed from consensus sequences generated from different genera, most of them shown to be applicable across the subfamily. High levels of variation in allele size were observed at interspecific levels but at intraspecific level, low levels were observed in Cypripedium calceolus. The application of plastid microsatellites for population genetic analyses in C. calceolus was limited because few of them are polymorphic and low numbers of alleles were detected. Results were generally congruent with a previous study. Within the limits of this data, the plastid haplotype distribution of C. calceolus in western and northern Europe could indicate possible recolonisation routes from three main refugia, following glaciations. Size variation has also been detected in other species in some markers but sampling was sparse.
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