Gund Fellow, Professor, Department of Plant and Soil Science

Dr. Eric JB von Wettberg is the Director of the Vermont Agricultural Experiment Station and a Professor in the Department of Plant and Soil Science at the University of Vermont with a research program focused on understanding crop domestication as a means to harness the diversity of crop wild relatives to breed crops with improved climatic resilience and stress tolerance. He received a PhD in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology from Brown University in 2007 and was a NIH National Research Service Award postdoc at the University of California at Davis from 2007-2009.  Broadly trained in evolution, genetics, ecology and agroecology, Dr. von Wettberg uses a combination of field, greenhouse common garden, and laboratory approaches.

Dr. von Wettberg leads a research group, the Crop Genetic Heritage laboratory, that has four primary aims motivated by a concern about climate change and a passion for understanding crop domestication:

  1. Work with genebanks and community groups to preserve crop genetic diversity
  2. Introduce new crops to Vermont
  3. Improve approaches to crop rotations and crop mixtures
  4. Understand how domestication and selection have impacted patterns of crop allocation to roots and root exudation.

Research and/or Creative Works

  • USAID Feed the Future Innovation Laboratory for Climate Resilient Chickpea
  • Managing Pasture for Healthy Farms and Soils Across Vermont
  • The New Roots for Restoration Institute
  • Culturally Meaningful, Regionally Adapted Seed: Making the Ujamaa Cooperative Farmers Alliance Market Ready

Publications

Selected

  • von Wettberg EJ, Chang PL, Greenspan A, Carrasquila-Garcia N, Basdemir F, Moenga S, Bedada G, Dacosta-Calheiros E, Moriuchi KS, Balcha L, Mamo B, Singh V,Cordeiro MA, Vance L, Bergmann E,  Warschefsky EJ, Marques E, Dinegde KN, Sani SG, Getahun T, Yilmaz MA, Cacmak A, Rose J, Migneault A, Krieg CP, Saylak S, Temel H, Noujdina NV, Friesen ML, Siler E, Linday D, Akhmetov Z, Ozelik H, Kholova J, Can C, Caur P, Yildirim M, Sharma H, Vadez V, Tesfaye K, Woldemedhin AF, Tar’an B, Ayodogan A, Bekun B, Penmetsa RV, Berger J, Kahraman A, Nuzhdin SV, Cook DR.  Ecology and community genomics of an important crop wild relative as a prelude to agricultural innovation. Nature Communications, 9, doi:10.1038/s41467-018-02867-z
  • von Wettberg EJ and Khoury C. 2020. Special Issue Feature: Access and Benefit Sharing and the governance of plant genomic and phenomic data: Background and Perspectives. Plants People, Planet.  https://doi.org/10.1002/ppp3.10105
  • Ong PW, Lin YP, Chen HW, Lo CY, Burlyaeva M, Noble T, Nair RM, Schafleitner R, Vishnyakova M, von Wettberg EJ, Samsonova MG, Nuzhdin SV, Ting CT, Lee CR. 2023. Environment as a limiting factor of the historical global spread of mungbean. ELIFE. https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.85725
  • Marques E, Bueno E, Kerwien L, von Wettberg EJ. 2024. Improving Rotational Partners: intraspecies variation for pea cover cropping traits.  In press, Agrosystems, Geosciences, and Environment.

Associations and Affiliations

  • Food Systems Initiative Affiliated faculty
  • NE 2210 Multistate Hatch Administrative Advisor
  • Fulbright Specialist, Addis Ababa Universtiy, Ethiopia

Areas of Expertise and/or Research

Agroecology, climate resilient agriculture, crop domestication, crop wild relatives, microbiome, symbiosis

Education

  • PhD, Ecology and Evolution, Brown University
  • BA, Biology, Swarthmore College

Contact

Email:

Eric.Bishop-Von-Wettberg@uvm.edu

Phone:
  • 802-656-9117
Website(s):
  1. Google Scholar
  2. The Von Wettberg Lab