Building manager Trudi Sunitsch said staff at the Cumberland St complex were ``all very excited'' at the ``largest Marsden success''at any grant round since the complex had opened about 30 years ago.
This was the biggest overall amount gained by the researchers at the Dunedin complex in one Marsden grant round, and the largest amount gained by Landcare Research staff in the office.
The success was particularly striking, given about 18 researchers, and more than 30 overall staff, were employed there, Ms Sunitsch said.
The University of Otago also enjoyed record success in the latest Marsden round, recently gaining about $24 million in funding for 33 research projects.
Prof Bill Lee, of Landcare Research, Dunedin, and the Auckland University School of Biological sciences, gained $925,000 to investigate aspects of whole genome duplication in New Zealand plants.
Landcare Research ecologist Dr Angela Brandt, and geologist Dr Rose Turnbull, of GNS Science, Dunedin, both received $300,000 Fast Start grants to investigate, respectively, aspects of bryophytes (mosses and liverworts) on the forest floor; and a ``novel approach'' for studying aspects of the evolution of the Earth's crust, and identifying likely areas for finding important strategic metals. Prof Lee said that many ferns and flowering plants had accumulated multiple chromosome sets from past hybridisation between species, or from genome duplications within a species, the latter termed whole-genome duplication (WGD).
Prof Lee looked forward to investigating the paradox that whole genome duplication had long been considered an ``evolutionary dead-end'' because of the ``complications and costs'' linked with sustaining expanded genomes.
But more than half New Zealand's native vascular plant species had originated directly from one or more WGD events.
The challenge was to understand ``why and how WGD plant species'' were so common in this country.
Plants carrying more DNA could also have ``different and extra options'' for adapting to environmental changes and taking opportunities that became available over the years, he said.
Vascular plants are characterised by the presence of conducting tissue.
