For further details see:
University of Essex webpage
Dr Martin Battle

TIGR2ESS:
Transforming India's Green Revolution by Research and Empowerment for Sustainable Food Supplies

Martin Battle is a postdoctoral researcher in the Lawson Plant Physiology Lab at the University of Essex. His PhD studies focused on circadian photobiology and green light responses in Arabidopsis thaliana and his current research involves improving understanding of leaf hydraulics in Pearl Millet (Pennisetum glaucum). His research aims to identify the properties of plants which lead to improved responses to natural stressors such as drought and shade, with the overarching goal of identifying optimal crop varieties and species in order to improve global food security and resource use efficiency by optimising crop productivity in response to the changing climate.

Martin works closely with all members of the Lawson Lab and under the umbrella of the Plant Productivity Group at the University of Essex. His research is part of Flagship Project 2 of the TIGR2ESS project, a Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) project spanning universities in the UK and India. TIGR2ESS is working to develop and strengthen alliances across a wide ranging network of UK and Indian experts in crop science, hydrology, social science and policy, creating a two-way knowledge exchange partnership in order to define the requirements for advancing the Green Revolution in India.​

His research, as a part of TIGR2ESS's Flagship Project 2 (FP2a), seeks to identify accessions of sorghum and pearl millet with improved water use efficiency and yield stability under drought stress, with the ultimate goal of improving food security for smallholder farmers in India by allowing for better utilisation of these highly efficient C4 crops.

Research interests:​
  • Plant abiotic stress responses and tolerance strategies
  • Non-photosynthetic photobiology in plants and the interactions between this and photosynthetic pathways

PhD Project:
Understanding and engineering photoresponses in Arabidopsis thaliana: A study of the roles of light quality in photoreceptor responses in Arabidopsis, with a focus on circadian rhythms, green light and the engineering of a green-light activated synthetic system as a tool for use in plants.

Publications:

Battle, M.W., Vegliani, F. and Jones, M.A., 2020. Shades of green: untying the knots of green photoperception. Journal of Experimental Botany, 71(19), pp.5764-5770.

Battle, M.W. and Jones, M.A., 2020. Cryptochromes integrate green light signals into the circadian system. Plant, cell & environment, 43(1), pp.16-27.

Litthauer, S., Battle, M.W. and Jones, M.A., (2016) Phototropins do not alter accumulation of evening-phased circadian transcripts under blue light. Plant signaling & behavior, 11(2), p.e1126029. 

Litthauer, S., Battle, M.W., Lawson, T. and Jones, M.A., (2015). Phototropins maintain robust circadian oscillation of PSII operating efficiency under blue light. The Plant Journal, 83(6), pp.1034-1045.