Dr Aaron P Davis

Senior Research Leader

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Department

Trait Diversity and Function

Team

Crops and Global Change

My role at Kew is Senior Research Leader of Crops and Global Change. Our team is dedicated to the identification and understanding of the beneficial traits of crops and associated organisms, particularly within the context of environmental stress resilience and climate change.

My research background is in taxonomy and systematics. I now focus on climate change resilience, sustainability, and crop development, with an emphasis on the application of underutilized plant diversity. I mainly work on coffee (Coffea) with a regional focus on tropical Africa and Madagascar.

  • BSc (Hons), University of Reading, 1990
  • PhD, University of Reading, 1994

Davis, A.P., Vega, F.E. (2023). 

Coffee’s legacy: almost 300 years of deforestation.

Nature 621: 691

Davis, A.P., Kiwuka, C., Faruk, A., Mulumba, J., Kalema, J. (2023).

A review of the indigenous coffee resources of Uganda and their potential for coffee sector sustainability and development.

Frontiers in Plant Science 13: 1057317 (2023). 

Davis, A.P., Kiwuka, C., Faruk, A., Walubiri, M.J., Kalema, J. (2022).

The re-emergence of Liberica coffee as a major crop plant.

Nature Plants 8: 1322–1328. 

ReadCube: https://rdcu.be/c1GZf 

Jan-Smith, E., Downes, H., Davis, A.P. et al (2025)

Metabolomic insights into the Arabica-like flavour of stenophylla coffee and the chemistry of quality coffee

npj Sci Food 9, 33

Davis, A. P., Chadburn, H., Moat, J., O’Sullivan, R., Hargreaves, S. & Nic Lughadha, E. (2019) 

High extinction risk for wild coffee species and implications for coffee sector sustainability.

Science Advances 5: eaav3473.

Davis, A. P., Mieulet, D., Moat, J., Sarmu, D., Haggar, J. (2021). 

Arabica-like flavour in a heat-tolerant wild coffee species.

Nature Plants 7: 413–418. doi: 10.1038/s41477-021-00891-4 

Davis, A. P., Wilkinson, T., Challa, Z. K., Williams, J., Baena, S., Gole, T. W. & Moat, J. (2018)

Coffee Atlas of Ethiopia, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew.

Moat, J., Williams, J., Baena, S., Wilkinson, T., Gole, T.W., Challa, Z.K., Demissew, S., & Davis, A.P. (2017).

Resilience potential of the Ethiopian coffee sector under climate change.

Nature Plants 3: 17081.

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