Ruairidh Sawers
Associate Professor of Plant Response to Abiotic Stress
-
204 Tyson
University Park, PA - rjs6686@psu.edu
- 814-863-2252
Research Summary
Local adaptation and stress tolerance in crop plants and their wild relatives; plant nutrition; arbuscular mycorrhizae; maize genetics and genomics.
Huck Graduate Students
Huck Affiliations
Links
Most Recent Publications
Landscape transcriptomics as a tool for addressing global change effects across diverse species
J Keagy, Chloe Drummond, Kadeem Gilbert, C Grozinger, J Hamilton, H Hines, J Lasky, Cheryl Logan, Ruairidh Sawers, T Wagner, Molecular Ecology Resources
Environmental data provide marginal benefit for predicting climate adaptation
Forrest Li, Daniel J. Gates, Edward S. Buckler, Matthew B. Hufford, Garrett M. Janzen, Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, Fausto Rodríguez-Zapata, J. Alberto Romero Navarro, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Samantha J. Snodgrass, Kai Sonder, Martha C. Willcox, Sarah J. Hearne, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, Daniel E. Runcie, 2025, PLoS Genetics
In silico analysis of the evolution of root phenotypes during maize domestication in Neolithic soils of Tehuacán
Ivan Lopez-Valdivia, Miguel Vallebueno-Estrada, Harini Rangarajan, Kelly Swarts, Bruce F. Benz, Michael Blake, Jagdeep Singh Sidhu, Sergio Perez-Limon, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Hannah Schneider, Jonathan P. Lynch, 2025, New Phytologist
Teosinte populations exhibit weak local adaptation to their rhizosphere biota despite strong effects of biota source on teosinte fitness and traits
Anna M. O'Brien, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Jaime Gasca-Pineda, Ivan Baxter, Luis E. Eguiarte, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, Sharon Y. Strauss, 2024, Evolution; international journal of organic evolution on p. 1991-2005
The ancestral environment of teosinte populations shapes their root microbiome
Christopher J. Barnes, Maria Sophie Bünner, M. Rosario Ramírez-Flores, Ida Broman Nielsen, Jazmin Ramos-Madrigal, Daria Zharikova, Chloee M. McLaughlin, M. Thomas Gilbert, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, 2024, Standards in Genomic Sciences
Seedling root system adaptation to water availability during maize domestication and global expansion
Peng Yu, Chunhui Li, Meng Li, Xiaoming He, Danning Wang, Hongjie Li, Caroline Marcon, Yu Li, Sergio Perez-Limón, Xinping Chen, Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Robert Koller, Ralf Metzner, Dagmar van Dusschoten, Daniel Pflugfelder, Ljudmilla Borisjuk, Iaroslav Plutenko, Audrey Mahon, Marcio F.R. Resende, Silvio Salvi, Asegidew Akale, Mohanned Abdalla, Mutez Ali Ahmed, Felix Maximilian Bauer, Andrea Schnepf, Guillaume Lobet, Adrien Heymans, Kiran Suresh, Lukas Schreiber, Chloee M. McLaughlin, Chunjian Li, Manfred Mayer, Chris Carolin Schön, Vivian Bernau, Nicolaus von Wirén, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Tianyu Wang, Frank Hochholdinger, 2024, Nature Genetics on p. 1245-1256
Heritable microbiome variation is correlated with source environment in locally adapted maize varieties
Xiaoming He, Danning Wang, Yong Jiang, Meng Li, Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Chloee McLaughlin, Caroline Marcon, Li Guo, Marcel Baer, Yudelsy A.T. Moya, Nicolaus von Wirén, Marion Deichmann, Gabriel Schaaf, Hans Peter Piepho, Zhikai Yang, Jinliang Yang, Bunlong Yim, Kornelia Smalla, Sofie Goormachtig, Franciska T. de Vries, Hubert Hüging, Mareike Baer, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Jochen C. Reif, Frank Hochholdinger, Xinping Chen, Peng Yu, 2024, Nature Plants on p. 598-617
Evidence that variation in root anatomy contributes to local adaptation in Mexican native maize
Chloee M. McLaughlin, Meng Li, Melanie Perryman, Adrien Heymans, Hannah Schneider, Jesse R. Lasky, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, 2024, Evolutionary Applications
Maize zinc uptake is influenced by arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis under various soil phosphorus availabilities
Baogang Yu, Chengxiang Zhou, Zhonghua Wang, Marcel Bucher, Gabriel Schaaf, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Xinping Chen, Frank Hochholdinger, Chunqin Zou, Peng Yu, 2024, New Phytologist
Interplay between developmental cues and rhizosphere signals from mycorrhizal fungi shape root anatomy, impacting crop productivity
Alexandre Grondin, Meng Li, Rahul Bhosale, Ruairidh Sawers, Hannah M. Schneider, 2024, Plant and Soil
Most-Cited Papers
Phosphorus acquisition efficiency in arbuscular mycorrhizal maize is correlated with the abundance of root-external hyphae and the accumulation of transcripts encoding PHT1 phosphate transporters
Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Simon F. Svane, Clement Quan, Mette Grønlund, Barbara Wozniak, Mesfin Nigussie Gebreselassie, Eliécer González-Muñoz, Ricardo A. Chávez Montes, Ivan Baxter, Jerome Goudet, Iver Jakobsen, Uta Paszkowski, 2017, New Phytologist on p. 632-643
Transcriptome diversity among rice root types during asymbiosis and interaction with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi
Caroline Gutjahr, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Guillaume Marti, Liliana Andrés-Hernández, Shu Yi Yang, Leonardo Casieri, Herbert Angliker, Edward J. Oakeley, Jean Luc Wolfender, Cei Abreu-Goodger, Uta Paszkowski, 2015, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America on p. 6754-6759
An N-acetylglucosamine transporter required for arbuscular mycorrhizal symbioses in rice and maize
Marina Nadal, Ruairidh Sawers, Shamoon Naseem, Barbara Bassin, Corinna Kulicke, Abigail Sharman, Gynheung An, Kyungsook An, Kevin R. Ahern, Amanda Romag, Thomas P. Brutnell, Caroline Gutjahr, Niko Geldner, Christophe Roux, Enrico Martinoia, James B. Konopka, Uta Paszkowski, 2017, Nature Plants
The impact of domestication and crop improvement on arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis in cereals: insights from genetics and genomics
Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, M. Rosario Ramírez-Flores, Víctor Olalde-Portugal, Uta Paszkowski, 2018, New Phytologist on p. 1135-1140
The maize (Zea mays ssp. mays var. B73) genome encodes 33 members of the purple acid phosphatase family
Eliécer González-Muñoz, Aida Odette Vázquez Avendaño, Ricardo A. Chávez Montes, Stefan de Folter, Liliana Andrés-Hernández, Cei Abreu-Goodger, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, 2015, Frontiers in Plant Science on p. 1-12
Genome sequencing reveals evidence of adaptive variation in the genus Zea
Lu Chen, Jingyun Luo, Minliang Jin, Ning Yang, Xiangguo Liu, Yong Peng, Wenqiang Li, Alyssa Phillips, Brenda Cameron, Julio Bernal, Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Qing Liu, Yuejia Yin, Xinnan Ye, Jiali Yan, Qinghua Zhang, Xiaoting Zhang, Shenshen Wu, Songtao Gui, Wenjie Wei, Yuebin Wang, Yun Luo, Chenglin Jiang, Min Deng, Min Jin, Liumei Jian, Yanhui Yu, Maolin Zhang, Xiaohong Yang, Matthew Hufford, Alisdair Fernie, Marilyn Warburton, Jeffrey Ross-Ibarra, Jianbing Yan, 2022, Nature Genetics on p. 1736-1745
A rice Serine/Threonine receptor-like kinase regulates arbuscular mycorrhizal symbiosis at the peri-arbuscular membrane
Ronelle Roth, Marco Chiapello, Héctor Montero, Peter Gehrig, Jonas Grossmann, Kevin O’Holleran, Denise Hartken, Fergus Walters, Shu Yi Yang, Stefan Hillmer, Karin Schumacher, Sarah Bowden, Melanie Craze, Emma J. Wallington, Akio Miyao, Ruairidh Sawers, Enrico Martinoia, Uta Paszkowski, 2018, Nature Communications on p. 4677
Heritable microbiome variation is correlated with source environment in locally adapted maize varieties
Xiaoming He, Danning Wang, Yong Jiang, Meng Li, Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo, Chloee McLaughlin, Caroline Marcon, Li Guo, Marcel Baer, Yudelsy A.T. Moya, Nicolaus von Wirén, Marion Deichmann, Gabriel Schaaf, Hans Peter Piepho, Zhikai Yang, Jinliang Yang, Bunlong Yim, Kornelia Smalla, Sofie Goormachtig, Franciska T. de Vries, Hubert Hüging, Mareike Baer, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Jochen C. Reif, Frank Hochholdinger, Xinping Chen, Peng Yu, 2024, Nature Plants on p. 598-617
Gene regulatory effects of a large chromosomal inversion in highland maize
Taylor Crow, James Ta, Saghi Nojoomi, M. Rocío Aguilar-Rangel, Jorge Vladimir Torres Rodríguez, Daniel Gates, Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, Ruairidh Sawers, Daniel Runcie, 2020, PLoS Genetics
Inoculation with the mycorrhizal fungus Rhizophagus irregularis modulates the relationship between root growth and nutrient content in maize (Zea mays ssp. mays L.)
M. Rosario Ramírez-Flores, Elohim Bello-Bello, Rubén Rellán-Álvarez, Ruairidh J.H. Sawers, Víctor Olalde-Portugal, 2019, Plant Direct on p. e00192