Dr Rana Munns: improving crops for saline soils

Dr Rana Munns leads research to improve the salt tolerance of crops.

• 4 December 2007 | Updated 24 November 2011

Overview

• Current activities
• Background
• Academic qualifications
• Achievements

Current activities

Dr Rana Munns is working to understand the genetic and physiological basis of salt tolerance in plants, particularly in wheat.

Genes for the control of salt uptake identified in an ancient wheat are being crossed into modern wheat to improve its salt tolerance.

Background

Dr Munns joined CSIRO Plant Industry in 1981.

Her research has focused on mechanisms of stress tolerance in plants, in particular on adaptations to drought and salinity stress in wheat and barley.

This work started at Macquarie University, Sydney, New South Wales, Australia, and continued at the University of Western Australia in Perth.

Dr Munns has characterised the critical plant processes involved in tolerance of salinity, and shown what distinguishes salinity stress from drought stress.

She identified the processes which most limit plant growth in saline soils, and the tissues in which they occur.

This work produced a novel and highly sensitive technique for identifying salinity-tolerant plants.

Recently she discovered novel genes in an ancestral wheat that control the uptake of sodium and prevent it accumulating in leaves.

These genes are being transferred to durum wheat and bread wheat cultivars, with the aim of improving grain yield in saline soil.

Academic qualifications

Dr Munns has been awarded a:

• Bachelor of Science with Honours in the Biochemistry Department at The University of Sydney in 1966
• Doctor of Philosophy in 1972.

She carried out her Doctoral research on chloroplast development in the CSIRO Plant Physiology Unit, which  moved from The University of Sydney to Macquarie University.

Achievements

Dr Munns is recognised internationally for her insights into the fundamental principles of crop adaptation to drought and salinity, and for applications of these insights. 

She is an invited speaker at most international meetings on salt tolerance in plants, including the biennial Gordon Conference on Salt and Water Stress in Plants since its inception in 1994.

She has been key note speaker at the:

• 1st and 2nd International Crop Science Congress (1992, 1996)
• 16th International Botanical Congress (1999)
• 14th International Plant Nutrition Colloquium (2001)
• 1st International Salinity Forum (2005).

She has been on the editorial board on many international plant physiology journals, and is currently on the board of:

• Plant Cell and Environment
• Journal of Experimental Botany
• Annals of Botany.

She is Editor-in-Chief for 'Functional Plant Biology' [external link].

She has published over 100 research papers and reviews.

In 2006 she was elected a Corresponding Member of the American Society of Plant Biologists, and in 2007 was elected a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science [external link]. 

In 2008 she was elected President of the Australian Society of Plant Scientists [external link].

See a list of scientific papers published by Dr Munns on the next page.