Dr Sandra Floyd - Researcher Profile

Sandra Floyd

Address

School of Biological Sciences
Building 18, Clayton

Biography

Dr Floyd is a plant evolutionary biologist who seeks to understand how the great diversity of land plants evolved from simple ancestral plants that invaded the land more than 400 million years ago.

Dr Floyd has broad training in plant biology with Bachelor's, Master's and PhD degrees from the United States. Her research has spanned the breadth of land plant diversity including flowering plants, gymnosperms, ferns, club mosses, mosses, and liverworts. Dr Floyd was one of the first researchers to extend the analysis of transcription factor evolution to include representatives of all land plants and the first to demonstrate microRNA regulation of a gene in non-flowering plants (published in Nature in 2004).

In recent years Dr Floyd has worked with Prof John Bowman, an ARC Federation Fellow, and other colleagues in the United States and Japan to develop a new genetic model plant system, Marchantia polymorpha,  for understanding the developmental genetics of the earliest land plants. Much of her work is now focused on the role of several developmental genes in Marchantia, although she continues to include other ancient plant groups in her work.

Dr Floyd was awarded an ARC Future Fellowship in 2010 to investigate the origin of plant vascular tissue using the liverwort Marchantia as a model system.

Qualifications

DOCTORATE, BIOLOGY
Institution: Univ of Colorado, Boulder
Year awarded: 2000
MASTER'S DEGREE BIOLOGY
Institution: Univ of Colarado, Boulder
Year awarded: 1995
BACHELOR DEGREE, BOTANY
Institution: Humboldt State University USA
Year awarded: 1989

Publications

Book Chapters

Floyd, S., Bowman, J.L., 2005, microRNAs: Micro-managing the plant genome, in Plant Epigenetics, eds Peter Meyer, Blackwell Publishing, Sheffield UK, pp. 244-278.

Journal Articles

Banks, J., Nishiyama, T., Hasebe, M., Bowman, J., Gribskov, M., dePamphilis, C., Albert, V., Aono, N., Aoyama, T., Ambrose, B., Ashton, N., Axtell, M., Barker, E., Barker, M., Bennetzen, J., Bonawitz, N., Chapple, C., Cheng, C., Correa, L., Dacre, M., DeBarry, J., Dreyer, I., Elias, M., Engstrom, E., Estelle, M., Liang, F., Finet, C., Floyd, S., Fremmer, W., Fujita, T., Gramzow, L., Gutensohn, M., Harholt, J., Hattori, M., Heyl, A., Hirai, T., Hiwatashi, Y., Ishikawa, M., Iwata, M., Karol, K., Koehler, B., Kolukisaoglu, U., Kubo, M., Kurata, T., Lalonde, S., Li, K., Ying, L., Litt, A., Lyons, E., Manning, G., Maruyama, T., Michael, T., Mikami, K., Miyazaki, S., Morinaga, S., Murata, T., Mueller-Roeber, B., Nelson, D., Obara, M., Oguri, Y., Olmstead, R., Onodera, N., Petersen, B., Pils, B., Prigge, M., Rensing, S., Riano-Pachon, D., Roberts, A., Sato, Y., Scheller, H., Schulz, B., Schulz, C., Shakirov, E., Shibagaki, N., Shinohara, N., Shippen, D., Sorensen, I., Sotooka, R., Sugimoto, N., Sugita, M., Sumikawa, N., Tanurdzic, M., Theissen, G., Ulvskov, P., Wakazuki, S., Weng, J., Willats, W., Wipf, D., Wolf, P., Yang, L., Zimmer, A., Zhu, Q., Mitros, T., Hellsten, U., Loque, D., Otillar, R., Salamov, A., Schmutz, J., Shapiro, H., Lindquist, E., Lucas, S., Rokhsar, D., Grigoriev, I., 2011, The Selaginella genome identifies genetic changes associated with the evolution of vascular plants, Science [P], vol 332, issue 6032, American Assocation for the Advancement of Science, USA, pp. 960-963.

Sarojam, R., Sappl, P., Goldshmidt, A., Efroni, I., Floyd, S., Eshed, Y., Bowman, J., 2010, Differentiating arabidopsis shoots from leaves by combined YABBY activities, Plant Cell [P], vol 22, issue 7, The Plant Cell, USA, pp. 2113-2130.

Floyd, S., Bowman, J., 2010, Gene expression patterns in seed plant shoot meristems and leaves: homoplasy or homology?, Journal Of Plant Research [P], vol 123, issue 1, Springer Tokyo, Tokyo Japan, pp. 43-55.

Ohto, M., Floyd, S., Fischer, R., Goldberg, R., Harada, J.J., 2009, Effects of APETALA2 on embryo, endosperm, and seed coat development determine seed size in Arabidopsis, Sexual Plant Reproduction [P], vol 22, issue 4, Springer, Germany, pp. 277-289.

Bowman, J.L., Floyd, S., 2008, Patterning and polarity in seed plant shoots, Annual Review of Plant Biology, vol 59, Annual Reviews, USA, pp. 67-88.

Bowman, J.L., Floyd, S., Sakakibara, K., 2007, Green Genes-Comparative Genomics of the Green Branch of Life, Cell, vol 129, issue 2, Cell Press, Cambridge USA, pp. 229-234.

Floyd, S., Bowman, J.L., 2007, The ancestral developmental tool kit of land plants, International Journal of Plant Sciences, vol 168, issue 1, University Chicago Press, Chicago USA, pp. 1-35.

Floyd, S.K., Bowman, J.L., 2006, Distinct developmental mechanisms reflect the independent origins of leaves in vascular plants, Current Biology, vol 16, Cell Press, Cambridge USA MA, pp. 1911-1917.

Floyd, S., Zalewski, C.S., Bowman, J.L., 2006, Evolution of class III homeodomain-leucine zipper genes in streptophytes, Genetics, vol 173, Genetics, Baltimore USA, pp. 373-388.

Floyd, S., Bowman, J.L., 2004, Ancient microRNA target sequences in plants, Nature, vol 428, Nature Publishing Group, UK, pp. 485-486.

Eshed, Y., Izhaki, A., Baum, S.F., Floyd, S., Bowman, J.L., 2004, Asymmetric leaf development and blade expansion in Arabidopsis are mediated by KANADI and YABBY activities, Development, vol 131, Company of Biologists, Cambridge England, pp. 2997-3006.

Emery, J.F., Floyd, S.K., Alvarez, J., Eshed, Y., Hawker, N.P., Izhaki, A., Baum, S.F., Bowman, J.L., 2003, Radial patterning of Arabidopsis shoots by class III HD-ZIP and KANADI genes, Current Biology, vol 13, Cell Press, Cambridge USA, pp. 1768-1774.

Forbis, T.A., Floyd, S.K., de Queiroz, A., 2002, The evolution of embryo size in angiosperms and other seed plants: implications for the evolution of seed dormancy, Evolution, vol 56, issue 11, The Society for the Study of Evolution, Lawrence Kansas USA, pp. 2112-2125.

Floyd, S.K., Friedman, W.E., 2001, Developmental evolution of endosperm in basal angiosperms: evidence from Amborella (Amborellaceae), Nuphar (Nymphaeaceae), and Illicium (IIliciaceae), Plant Systematics and Evolution, vol 228, Springer-Verlag, Austria, pp. 153-169.

Friedman, W.E., Floyd, S.K., 2001, Perspective: the origin of flowering plants and their reproductive biology - a tale of two phylogenies, Evolution, vol 55, issue 2, The Society for the Study of Evolution, Lawrence Kansas USA, pp. 217-231.