London
Wakehurst
RBG Kew was founded in 1759 and operates across two sites: Kew Gardens in London, a UNESCO World Heritage Site, and at Wakehurst in Sussex, which is the home of RBG Kew’s Millennium Seed Bank. We also have a permanent research station in Madagascar. We use the power of our science and the rich diversity of our gardens and collections to provide knowledge, inspiration and understanding of why plants and fungi matter to everyone.
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The Trait Diversity and Function Department explores the properties of plants and fungi and their potential applications to human health, well-being and sustainable development. We research how traits have evolved and how they function to reveal how species have adapted to particular environments and how resilient they may be to future change. This will enable better conservation of plants and fungi and identify species that we can use sustainably and equitably for the benefit of humankind. Within the Trait Diversity and Function department there are six teams: Biological Chemistry, Character Evolution, Seed and Stress Biology, Comparative Fungal Biology, Plant Health and Adaptation, and Crops and Global Change. This internship will be in the Seed and Stress Biology team, which is based at the Millennium Seed Bank at Wakehurst, in West Sussex. The research of the Seed and Stress Biology team focuses on key seed functional traits related to germination, longevity and stress in wild plant species to inform development of seed conservation and use strategies.
Assist with setting up and monitoring germination and stress tolerance experiments to investigate the resilience of tree seeds to drought and high temperature stress. The experiments will form part of a larger 3-year project, “Unlocking tree seed functional trait diversity and stress resilience to enhance ex situ conservation for restoration and use”. These experiments will use tree seed collections conserved at the Millennium Seed Bank to identify tree species with exceptional tolerance to environmental stress during germination and early stages of seedling development, which could be of particular interest for reforestation and restoration.
From June 10 to September 1, 2024 (adjustable at the discretion of the organisation)
The MSBP maintains a global network of seed collection and conservation partnerships to support the development of national seed conservation programmes. In addition to building the seed collection held at RBG Kews own seed bank, national collections and facilities are constantly being developed and improved. We focus our work on understanding seed biology,germination, storability and other seed traits that can be used for research and conservation. Our seed collections around the world are available for use in species recovery projects and habitat restoration initiatives. We run regular training courses both at the Millennium Seed Bank in UK and with overseas partners. Through our MSBP Data Warehouse and SAMARA newsletter and regular scientific publications, we share our knowledge and understanding to further the growth of seed conservation expertise globally.
What the intern will do:
From June 10 to September 1, 2024 (adjustable at the discretion of the organisation)
The department oversees all Science Education (MSc, PhD, interns etc.). It is also responsible to support the science department deliverables in the Kew Outreach Strategy.
This internship will have two aspects. The first is to develop a database that captures and tracks all of Kew’s outreach activities that take place through the 200+ scientific projects taking place at Kew. This work will include speaking to scientists at Kew and developing a database to hold relevant information including details of the outreach activities. The second aspect will be to support the development of a major outreach activity as part of Kew Science. This will be in the theme of a large citizen science project that aims to encourage the public to take part in a citizen science project. This opportunity will support the development of the citizen science project by conducting research into other similar citizen science projects, considering how Kew can approach a large citizen science project and working with the team to develop appropriate methodologies and approaches. The project is likely to use the application iNaturalist. iNatluralist allows citizens to make observations of plants, animals and fungi across the world.
From June 10 to September 1, 2024 (adjustable at the discretion of the organisation)
Taxonomy has been the backbone of RBG Kew’s scientific research throughout our history, and our collections and taxonomic experts are essential to the processes of describing and conserving biodiversity. Drawing on increased data availability and new tools and technologies, including phylogenomics and machine learning, we will push the frontiers of taxonomic research to accelerate the characterisation and identification of species in near real-time. We will also develop methods for speeding up the discovery of hidden diversity in natural history collections. In delivering the aims of this Priority, our focus will be on taxonomic groups and regions where progress is most needed, and our outputs will include detailed taxonomic publications, online tools, and other resources tailored to the specific needs of our stakeholders.
Some tropical genera are so taxonomically complex that they are frequently left out of other studies or processes such as species risk assessment, just because the species are so hard to tell apart and manage. Syzygium (Myrtaceae) and Cyrtandra (Gesneriaceae) areexamples of this. The intern of this internship will assist in survey of morphological traits of Syzygium and Cyrtandra species from either herbarium specimens or material collected and preserved in alcohol. The intern will supplement this dataset within formation from the literature, where necessary and possible. Results will be recorded as images or into a spreadsheet. The intern will spend some time curating herbarium and/or alcohol collected specimens. Light microscopy will be used to examine, measure and record floral and fruiting traits to contribute to a larger dataset resulting from similar surveys. Results will be considered considering recently published phylogenetic hypotheses of the genera and will ultimately support ongoing evolutionary or systematic projects including new species discovery.The student will experience working in and curating, the herbarium at Kew, and will be involved in published outputs – to be decided depending on the interest of the student.
From June 10 to September 1, 2024 (adjustable at the discretion of the organisation)
London
Wakehurst