Advisors: Jim Hanan, Christine Beveridge, ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research, University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia

Alla Seleznyova, HortResearch,  New Zealand

This project will investigate mathematical and computational methods for modelling physiological and genetic mechanisms underlying plant development and function.

Thechallenges are the complexity of plant structures and incompleteknowledge about plant properties and processes involved. You willexplore possible ways of overcoming these problems by applyingtechniques such as stochastic methods and fuzzy logic to model controlof branching and resource allocation to growing organs. The projectwill be based on an L-system modelling platform (http://algorithmicbotany.org/) designed for computer representation of the three-dimensional dynamics of growth of individual plants in their environment.

HortResearchexpertise in plant architecture and plant physiology and a large,existing collection of data on architecture and resource allocation inkiwifruit vine will form a foundation for the study, while newexperiments may also be designed as required for hypotheses developmentand testing.

This project is funded by the HortResearchKiwifruit Royalty Programme and will involve some travel betweenBrisbane and Palmerston North. It will give you an opportunity tointeract with an international team of biologists, mathematicians and computer scientists.

Further information about the PhD program at UQ can be found by following the Research Candidates and Scholarships links on the Graduate School page at http://www.uq.edu.au/grad-school

For More Information Contact:
Dr Jim Hanan 
ARC Centre of Excellence for Integrative Legume Research
Phone +61-7 3365-6132
Fax +61-7 3365-4325
Email jim@cpai.uq.edu.au
Web http://www.cpai.uq.edu.au

Closing Date: 31 July 2005

Source: Mathematical and computational methods for modelling the control of plant development and function