Matt Stata

The Stata lab studies how complex photosynthetic traits evolve and how plants respond to environmental stress. They combine comparative genomics and phylogenetics with physiology, anatomy, biochemistry, and single-cell and spatial transcriptomics to understand the evolution and function of C4 photosynthesis and related traits, and to identify cell-type-specific mechanisms underlying drought responses in crops such as sorghum and maize.

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Publiations

Coate JE, …, Stata M, et al., 2026. A single-cell blueprint for cellular diversity in the Green Lineage. Current Biology 36: R577–R589.

Stata M et al., 2025. Cell-type-specific response to drought in Sorghum bicolor reveals novel targets for improving water use efficiency. BioRxiv. DOI: 10.1101/2025.08.28.671794.

Stata M et al., 2025. How evolution repeatedly builds complexity: A case study with C4 photosynthesis in Blepharis (Acanthaceae). New Phytologist 248: 2092–2110.

Prado K, …, Stata M, et al., 2025. Photosynthetic acclimation mediates exponential growth of a desert plant in Death Valley summer. Current Biology 35: 5502–5520.

Xue B, Prado K, Rhee SY, Stata M. 2025. UnigeneFinder: An automated pipeline for gene calling from transcriptome assemblies without a reference genome. Plant Direct 9: e70056.

Adachi S, Stata M, et al., 2023. The evolution of C4 photosynthesis in Flaveria (Asteraceae): Insights from the Flaveria linearis complex. Plant Physiology 191: 233-251.

Stata M et al., 2019. Mind the gap: the evolutionary engagement of the C4 metabolic cycle in support of net carbon assimilation. Current Opinion in Plant Biology 49: 27–34.

Stata M, et al., 2016. Mesophyll chloroplast investment in C3, C4 and C2 species of the genus Flaveria. Plant & Cell Physiology 57: 904–918.

Stata M et al., 2014. Mesophyll cells of C4 plants have fewer chloroplasts than those of closely related C3 plants. Plant, Cell & Environment 37: 2587–2600.