Faculty & Staff
Ann E. Stapleton, Associate Professor
Ph.D., Genetics, University of Chicago, Chicago,
IL, 1990
B.S., Biology, University of Michigan-Ann Arbor, Ann Arbor, MI, 1983
Dobo Hall 224 | (910) 962-7267
| 601 South College Road, Wilmington, NC 28403-5915
stapletona@uncw.edu
I work at the interfaces, such as the junctions between research and teaching, independent research projects and large collaborative projects, the organization of international meetings and high-school teacher inquiry labs.
Research
How are genotype and phenotype associated in changing environments? My students and I address this question in maize, which has excellent public genetic tools and is an economically important crop. We are currently dissecting the genetic architecture of plant responses when drought and other stresses are applied in combination, and developing a better understanding of how microbial epiphytes interact with plant genes and growth environments. These answers will shape how we design more sustainable agricultural and ecological systems in the future.
Student Accomplishments—the Hall of Fame
My students have gone on to graduate school, careers in the agricultural and pharmaceutical industries, medical and nursing programs, and faculty positions. Career development is an important part of what you do when I’m your advisor!
Teaching and Mentoring
Recipient of the first UNCW award for mentoring of honors research students.
Design my classes to develop metacognitive skills—so that students learn how to learn science. Classes include honors first-semester introductory biology, junior-level cellular and molecular physiology, plant physiology, and capstone seminars on systems analysis and genomics.
Recent Publications (student co-authors bold type)
Makumburage, G. B.2, Stapleton A. E. 2011 Phenotype uniformity in combined-stress environments has a different genetic architecture than in single-stress treatments. Frontiers in Plant Science 2:12 doi: 10.3389/fpls.2011.00012.
Goff Stephen A, Vaughn Matthew, McKay Sheldon, Lyons Eric, Stapleton Ann E, Gessler Damian et al 2011 The iPlant Collaborative: Cyberinfrastructure for Plant Biology Frontiers in Plant Science 2 10.3389/fpls.2011.00034.
Balint-Kurti, P., Pridgen, P.1, Stapleton, A. E. 2011 Antibiotic Resets the Maize Leaf Phyllosphere Community and Increases Resistance to Southern Leaf Blight Acta Horticulturae 905, http://www.actahort.org/books/905/.
Harjes CE, Rocheford TR, Bai L, Brutnell TP, Kandianis CB, Sowinski SG, Stapleton AE, Vallabhaneni R, Williams M, Wurtzel ET, Yan J, Buckler ES (2008) Natural Genetic Variation in Lycopene Epsilon Cyclase Tapped for Maize Biofortification. Science 319: 330-333
Blanding CR, Simmons SJ, Casati P, Walbot V, Stapleton AE (2007) Coordinated regulation of maize genes during increasing exposure to ultraviolet radiation: identification of ultraviolet-responsive genes, functional processes and associated potential promoter motifs. Plant Biotechnology Journal 5: 677-695
Casati, P., Stapleton, A., Blum, J. E., Walbot, V. (2006) Genome-wide analysis of high altitude maize and gene knockdown stocks implicates chromatin remodeling proteins in responses to UV-B, Plant Journal 46:613-627.
Boone, Edward L., Susan J. Simmons, Keying Ye and Ann E. Stapleton (2006) Analyzing Quantitative Trait Loci for Arabidopsis thaliana using Markov Chain Monte Carlo Model Composition with Restricted and Unrestricted Model Spaces. Statistical Methodology 3(1): 69-78.
Simmons, S. J. and Ann E. Stapleton (2006) Bayesian hierarchical models to detect quantitative trait loci. Chance 19(3):11-14
Stapleton, A. E. and Simmons, S. J. (2006) Plant Control of Phyllosphere Diversity: Genotype Interactions with Ultraviolet-B Radiation in Microbial Ecology of Aerial Plant Surfaces, Ed. M. Bailey.
Kunzelman, Jennifer I., Michael J. Durako, W. Judson Kenworthy, Ann E. Stapleton, and Jeffrey L.C. Wright (2005) Irradiance-induced changes in the photobiology of Halophila johnsonii Eiseman. Marine Biology 148:241-250.
Brown, Jeffrey L., Clayton S. Ferner, Thomas C. Hudson, Ann E. Stapleton, Ronald J. Vetter, Andrew Martin, Jerry Martin, Allen Rawls, William J. Shipman, Michael Wood, and Tristan Carland (2005) GridNexus: A Grid Services Scientific Workflow System. International Journal of Computer & Information Science (IJCIS) 6(2): 72-82.
Blum, J. E., Casati, P., Walbot, V. and Stapleton, A. E. (2004) Split-plot microarray design allows sensitive detection of expression differences after ultraviolet radiation in the inbred parental lines of a key maize mapping population. Plant Cell and Environment 27(11):1374-1386
Wrede, C. S., Blum, J. E., Brown, J. L. and Stapleton, A. E. (2004) Comparison of transmembrane helix frequencies using whole-genome and maize expressed sequence curve fits. Maydica 49(2):67-76.
Hudson, T., Stapleton, A., and J. Brown (2004) Codifying bioinformatics processes without programming. Drug Discovery Today: BIOSILICO 2 (4):164-169
Kadivar, H. and A. E. Stapleton (2003) Ultraviolet Radiation Alters Maize Phyllosphere Bacterial Diversity Microbial Ecology 45:353-361
Long, L. M., H. Patel, P. Cory, W. C. and A. E. Stapleton (2003) The Maize Epicuticular Wax Layer Provides UV Protection Functional Plant Biology 30:75-81
Cartwright, H. N., Baucom, C., Singh, P., Smith, K. L., and Stapleton, A. (2001) Intraspecific comparisons reveal differences in the pattern of ultraviolet radiation responses in four maize (Zea mays L.) varieties. Journal of Photochemistry and Photobiology B: Biology 62:88-96
Synergistic Activities
Key member of iPlant and other proposals for the $50 million NSF PSCIC competition; specialty area is supervision of synthesis activities, especially training of faculty cross-disciplinary teams in conjunction with computing infrastructure development.
Panel Manager for $10 million 2006/2007 CAP Applied Genomics Program USDA CSREES.
Mentored under-represented minority student Carletha Blanding in her MS project on time course microarray statistical analysis; she graduated with her MS in Biology in 2005 and is employed as a biostatistician. Carletha was featured as a success story in the UNCW Research magazine.
Jointly taught graduate Bioinformatics class with CS faculty member Thomas Hudson Spring 2006; both CS and Bio graduate students enrolled and worked in cross-disciplinary teams.
Nominated for 1998 UT National Alumni Association Outstanding Teacher Award.
Grant reviewer for USDA NRI Competitive Grants Programs, NSF Division of Undergraduate Education, NSF Eukaryotic Genetics, NSF Plant Genome Research, DOE Basic Biosciences Division, NSF Environmental Genomics, Israel-US Binational Science Foundation.
Served on the Committee of Visitors for the NSF Plant Genome Research program five-year review in 2001; participated in a reverse site visit for the NSF Plant Genome Program in 2002. Panel Member, USDA Plant Genome Program 2004. Acting Panel Manager, USDA RICECAPS panel 2004. Panel Member, NRICGP Plants and Environmental Adaptations panel April 2005 and May 2006.
Manuscripts reviewed for more than 20 journals including: Plant Physiology, Plant Cell and Environment, Planta, PNAS, Plant Cell, Global Change Biology, Genetics, Bioinformatics, Microbial Ecology.
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