Plant Research Faculty

Don Cipollini (Assistant Professor):
Cipollini Lab Page
Unlike animals, plants can not run away from potentially damaging stresses in their environment. Thus, plants have evolved numerous defense mechanisms that help them avoid damage by herbivores, pathogens, and abiotic stresses. Work in Dr. Cipollini's lab involves the physiology, ecology, and evolution of plant defenses to herbivores and other environmental stresses, in the context of phenotypic plasticity. Much of this work focuses on chemical defenses that are inducible (activated) by wounding, herbivore attack, or abiotic stress, which we are investigating using biological, biochemical and molecular techniques. Current topics include:

. Environmental regulation, defensive role, and genetic variation of proteinase inhibitors, glucosinolates, and other chemical defenses in Brassica species.
. Biochemical and ecological cross-effects of inducible defenses in Arabidopsis thaliana using characterized ecotypes, mutants, and plants from wild populations.
. Costs to growth and fitness of the production of plant chemical defenses.
. Effects of the environmental conditions on the expression of growth, reproduction, and chemical defenses in Brassica and Solanum species.
. Characterization of chemical defenses in garlic mustard Alliaria petiolata , an invasive forest understory weed (that is locally abundant in Wright State's forest preserve).
. Biological assays of plant chemical defenses using insects.
. Biochemical, morphological, and reproductive responses of plants to mechanical stresses (such as wind).

James Amon (Associate Professor):
[ Beavercreek Wetlands ]
Plants are key components of wetland ecosystems. The current focus of the plant-related research in Dr. Amon's lab is on understanding and restoring wetland habitats. In recent years, his research has involved the following diverse topics :

. Selection of wetland revegetation plans.
. Using plants as the basis for phytoremediation of sewage discharges and for groundwater contaminated with chlorinated hydrocarbons.
. Analysis of Purple Loosestrife cultivars for their genetics and threat to the environment.
. Methods for growth and germination of wetland plant seeds.
. Identification of wetland plants for wetland delineation projects
. Characterization of a wetland transects using plants as an indicator of habitat type.
. Investigation of plant community types in fens of the temperate zones in the USA.
. Examination of wetland plants for associated mycorrhiza.
. Examination of wetland plant communities for limitation by phosphorus and nitrogen.
. Study of nitrogen fixation and denitrification in constructed and natural wetlands.
. Research on the causative agent of eelgrass wasting.
. Isolation and culture of marine fungi and protists from marine algae and plants.
. Examination of the calcium oxalate toxicity of desert plants (Halogeton) to sheep and lab animals.
. Tissue culture of orchid meristems for studies of plant pathogenic bacteria.

James Runkle (Professor)

The focus of the research in Dr. Runkle's lab is on characterizing and examining change in the distribution and abundance of forest plant species at the population and community level. Current research includes:

. Population dynamics of old growth forests in the Eastern US, including forests in the Smoky Mountains, and in Wright State's own forest preserve.
. Characterizing the vegetation of local areas, including parks in the Dayton Five River's Metropark system, the Beavercreek Wetlands, and in the municipality of Oakwood, OH.

Wayne Carmichael (Professor):
[ Carmichael Lab Page ] 
Although algae are not higher plants, they still photosynthesize! Research in Dr. Carmichael's laboratory is divided into two main areas concerning the production and regulation of secondary metabolites by algae, especially cyanobacteria (blue-green algae).

. Environmental toxicology of cyanobacteria toxins in municipal and recreational water supplies. This includes world-wide occurrence of toxic cyanobacteria, regulation of toxin production in nature and toxicology of toxic strains and isolated toxins.
. Application of biotechnological methods and approaches to the study of secondary metabolites. This includes algae culture, toxin production, molecular taxonomy, isolation and characterization of toxins, their mechanism of action (including use as pharmacological tools) and regulation of toxin production at the cellular/molecular level.

Dan Krane (Associate Professor):

Dr. Krane is a molecular geneticist who uses the tools of molecular biology to study molecular evolution and to probe the effects of environmental contaminants on genetic diversity of a wide array of organisms. Regarding plants, the molecular techniques used in Dr. Krane's lab (such as RAPD-PCR) have to been used to examine such topics as:

. the genetic relatedness of two maple species
. genetic diversity of populations of the invasive weed, garlic mustard
. genetic relatedness of Purple Loosestrife hybrid cultivars and wild species

Marcia Wendeln (Lecturer):

Marcia Wendeln has performed research in the past on fruit eating by primates in the tropics. Marcia is currently our undergraduate lab coordinator and contributes a broad range of knowledge on conservation biology, tropical biology, and several other plant-related topics. She recently co-taught a seminar on conservation biology.