The UK government’s new biodiversity net gain scheme means that all new building projects in the UK must achieve a 10% net gain in biodiversity or habitat. However, as Professor of Plant Genetics Andrew Leitch explains, we need to protect and preserve biodiversity on a much larger scale.

In order to do that for plants, we need to understand what’s affecting them today, and what the future of plant life might look like.

That’s what PhD student Marie Henniges, in collaboration with my team, is aiming to answer with her AI-powered research into plant biology. They’ve found key differences in the genome size between native and alien plant life that may hold the key to understand future biodiversity.