Alastair Culham

Who is Alastair Culham?

Alastair Culham is an English botanist. He is a member of the staff of the School of Biological Sciences at the University of Reading and Curator of the University of Reading Herbarium. He specializes in plant taxonomy, biosystematics and applications of techniques from molecular biology, phytogeography and phylogenetics. He focuses on broad-based research in biodiversity and taxonomy.

One aspect of his research concerns the effects of climate change on biodiversity. He has contributed to papers on the impacts of climate change on plant evolution as well as reviews of data source quality and computational approaches to large-scale niche modelling.

His work on the evolutionary biology of plants of interest to horticulture includes relationships within Pelargonium, evolutionary patterns within plant genera on islands, with emphasis on Echium, the phylogenetic history of Drosera and phylogenetic and taxonomic revision on Actaea and Ranunculaceae tribe Actaeae, a phylogenetic evaluation of Plectranthus and Solenostemon and recently a review of Cyclamen phylogeny and classification.