Assistant Professor - School of Plant Sciences
dukepauli@email.arizona.edu, Marley 541A
(520)-621-3656
Research Interests
- The long-term goals of my research program are to understand and utilize the genetic and functional phenotypic variation present in plant populations to responsibly address the challenges facing a growing global population including food and fiber security. The research program is composed of three separate but synergistic areas that combine to elucidate the genetic mechanisms responsible for key agronomic, quality, and stress-adaptive traits that are critical to crop production in areas prone to intense abiotic stress pressures. The first area is centered on identifying and characterizing existing genomic variation in plant populations to better understand the dynamics of phenotypic diversity. The second area concentrates on using emerging high-throughput phenotyping (HTP) technologies to quantify and record complex phenotypes that are responsive to environmental fluctuations throughout the plant’s life cycle in order to understand temporal trait expression patterns. The final area is focused on discovering allelic variants and causative genes responsible for observed phenotypic variation through the use of genetic mapping populations and statistical methods. Together, my research program’s findings are used to more efficiently develop improved crop cultivars that are capable of meeting the socioeconomic demands and environmental constraints of the future.
Selected Publications
Thorp, K.R., Calleja, S.‡, Pauli, D., Thompson, A.L., and Elshikha, D.E. 2022. Agronomic Outcomes of Precision Irrigation Management Technologies with Varying Complexity. Journal of American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers. doi: 10.13031/ja.14950
Zarei, A., Gonzalez, E.M.‡, Merchant, N., Pauli, D., Lyons, E., and Barnard, K. 2022. MegaStitch: Robust Large-Scale Image Stitching. IEEE Transactions on Geoscience and Remote Sensing. 60:1-9, 2022, Art no. 4408309. doi: 10.1109/TGRS.2022.3141907.
Melandri, G.†, Thorp, K.R., Broeckling, C., Thompson, A.L., Hinze, L., and Pauli, D.* 2021. Assessing Drought and Heat Stress-Induced Changes in the Cotton Leaf Metabolome and Their Relationship with Hyperspectral Reflectance. Frontiers in Plant Science. 12:2393. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2021.751868
Pugh, N.A.†, Thorp, K.R., Gonzalez, E.M.‡, Elshikha, D.E.M., and Pauli, D*. 2021. Comparison of Image Georeferencing Strategies for Agricultural Applications of Small Unoccupied Aircraft Systems. The Plant Phenome Journal. 4:e20026. doi: 10.1002/ppj2.20026
Jain, P., Liu, W., Zhu, S., Chang, C.Y., Melkonian, J., Rockwell, F.E., Pauli, D., Sun, Y., Zipfel, W.R., Holbrook, N.M., Riha, S.J., Gore, M.A., and Stroock, A.D. 2021. A Minimally Disruptive Method for Measuring Water Potential In-Planta Using Hydrogel Nanoreporters. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. 118(23). doi: 10.1073/pnas.2008276118
Wang, D.R.*, Mackay, D.S., Venturas, M.D., Hunsaker, D.J., Thorp, K.R., Gore, M.A., and Pauli, D.* 2020. Use of Hydraulic Traits for Modeling Genotype-Specific Acclimation in Cotton Under Drought. New Phytologist. doi: 10.1111/nph.16751
Nelson, A.D.L., Ponciano, G., McMahan, C., Ilut, D.C., Pugh, N.A., Elshikha, D.E., Hunsaker, D.J., and Pauli, D.* 2019. Transcriptomic and Evolutionary Analysis of the Mechanisms by which P. argentatum, a Rubber Producing Perennial, Responds to Drought. BMC Plant Biology 19(494). doi:10.1186/s12870-019-2106-2
Gazave, E., Tassone, E.E., Baseggio, M., Cryder, M., Byriel, K., Oblath, E., Lueschow, S., Poss, D., Hardy, C., Wingerson, M., Davis, J.B., Abdel-Haleem, H., Grant, D.M., Hatfield, J.L., Isbell, T.A., Vigil, M.F., Dyer, J.M., Jenks, M.A., Brown, J., Gore, M.A., and Pauli, D.* 2020. Genome-Wide Association Study Identifies Acyl-Lipid Metabolism Candidate Genes Involved in the Genetic Control of Natural Variation for Seed Fatty Acid Traits in Brassica napus L. Industrial Crops and Products 145. doi: 10.1016/j.indcrop.2019.112080
Herritt, M.T., Pauli, D., Mockler, T.C., and Thompson, A.L. 2020. Chlorophyll Fluorescence Imaging Captures Photochemical Efficiency of Grain Sorghum (Sorghum bicolor) in a Field Setting. Plant Methods 16(1). doi: 10.1186/s13007-020-00650-0
Teaching Responsibilities
- PLS 415 Plant Breeding and Genetics
- PLS 306 Crop Science and Production
Research Areas
- Crop and Horticultural Management and Production
- Environmental and Stress Biology
- Genetics and Epigenetics
