International Association for Plant Taxonomy 2021 Stebbins Medal

Luke T. Dunning, Jill K. Olofsson, Christian Parisod, Rimjhim R. Choudhury, Jose J. Moreno-Villena, Yang Yang, Jacqueline Dionora, W. Paul Quick, Minkyu Park, Jeffrey L. Bennetzen, Guillaume Besnard, Patrik Nosil, Colin P. Osborne & Pascal-Antoine Christin. 2019. Lateral transfers of large DNA fragments spread functional genes among grasses. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A. 116(10): 4416–4425. https://www.pnas.org/content/116/10/4416.short The Stebbins Medal was first awarded in 2003 honour the American botanist and geneticist George Ledyard (1906–2000), one world's leading plant evolutionary biologists 20th century. medal is biennially by IAPT for an outstanding paper phylogenetic systematics evolution plants. 2021 award considered papers published 2018 In their paper, Dunning al. presented most thorough far-reaching study to date that convincingly demonstrates extensive lateral gene transfer (LGT) By comparing genomes many grasses, they showed blocks containing are laterally passed species distantly related across grass phylogeny. Through stringent phylogenomic analyses, discovered 59 LGTs clustered on 23 acquired genomic up 170 kb long genome Alloteropsis semialata (R.Br.) Hitchc., involving at least nine different donor species. They also some these transferred have added functions recipient genomes. This suggests LGT represents a potent force capable spreading lineages (Fig. 1), author studied his Bachelor's Degree Cardiff University, Wales, United Kingdom Ph.D. University Auckland New Zealand. Since October 2020, he holds Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) Independent Fellowship Department Animal Plant Sciences Sheffield, U.K. Previously, worked as postdoctoral researcher with Christin, senior winning Sheffield. Luke's work focuses genomics rapid adaptation grasses combines cutting-edge techniques, comparative analyses experimental approaches understand how organisms adapt environment (https://dunning-lab.group.shef.ac.uk). Many congratulations colleagues! Award committee comprises Paula Rudall (U.K.), Loren Rieseberg (Canada) Hughes, Chair (Switzerland). grateful hard making this selection.