Dr. Rita Armonienė

ORCiD iD: 0000-0002-8792-8156
Mob. +370 612 54 019
Email: rita.armoniene@lammc.lt
Instituto al. 1, Akademija, LT-58344 Kėdainiai distr., Lithuania
ResearchGate: http://www.researchgate.net/profile/Rita_Armoniene

Education

2010–2014 PhD studies, Institute of Agriculture, LAMMC.

2008–2010 Master degree in Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Vytautas Magnus University.

2004–2008 Bachelor degree in Biology, Vytautas Magnus University. 

Academic degrees and pedagogical titles

PhD in Science in Agriculture, Agronomy, Aleksandras Stulginskis University (since 2019 Vytautas Magnus University Agriculture Academy) with LAMMC, Lithuania. Thesis “Freezing tolerance in winter wheat: gene identification and analysis”. 

Research topics

• Plant adaptation to abiotic and biotic stress, gene identification and expression analysis
• DNA marker development and application in wheat breeding
• Identification of genes and its confirmation role in cold acclimation process in winter wheat using mutational genomics
• Implementation of low cost high-throughput  phenotyping tools for imaging and analysis of cereal crops

Professional experience

Since 2020 Head of Laboratory of Genetics and Physiology, Senior Researcher, Institute of Agriculture, LAMMC.

2018–2020 Senior Researcher, Institute of Agriculture, LAMMC.

2015–2018 Researcher, Institute of Agriculture, LAMMC.

2016–2017 Postdoctoral Researcher: Department of Plant Breeding, University of Agriculture Sciences, Alnarp, Sweden.

2010–2015 Junior Researcher, Institute of Agriculture, LAMMC.

2008–2009 Technician, Lithuanian Institute of Agriculture.

Memberships and affiliations with professional organizations

• Since 2019 member of Junior Academy of Lithuanian Academy of Sciences.

In-service training

• 2016–2017 Postdoc at Swedish university of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), Department of Plant breeding (Alnarp, Sweeden).

• 2016/11–12 Scientific visit at the Wheat pathology laboratory, CIMMYT, El Batan, Mexico.

Participation in programmes and projects

• 2021–2023 Baltic research programme “NOBALwheat – breeding toolbox for sustainable food system of the NOrdic BALtic region”, participant.

• 2019–2020 “Survey of the environmental risk assessment of GMOs”, participant.
• 2017–2021 High level R&D project (SMART) funded by the Lithuanian Research Council “Development of winter wheat varieties for amylose-free starch and vital gluten processing”, participant.
• 2018–2019 EPPN2020 // Transnational Access project: “Analysis of physiological and biochemical characteristics of winter wheat Sucrose synthase1 (SS1) nonsense mutants during cold acclimation”, supervisor.
• 2017–2020 “Baltic Sea Region network for sustainable wheat production (BALTICWHEAT)”, coordinator in the Institute of Agriculture, LAMMC.

Awards

• September, 2018 Lithuanian Academy of Sciences award for scholarship 2018–2019.

• September, 2016 Swedish Institute award for post-doctoral research at Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences.
• March, 2015 Lithuanian Academy of Sciences award for outstanding doctoral thesis.
• March, 2011 Lithuanian Academy of Sciences award for outstanding Master thesis.

Articles in journals indexed in Clarivate Analytics Web of Science database

1. Lavrukaite K., Heick T. M., Ramanauskiene J., Armoniene R., Ronis A. 2023. Fungicide sensitivity levels in the Lithuanian Zymoseptoria tritici population in 2021. Frontiers in Plant Science, 13: 1075038. IF – 6,627
2. Vaitkevičiūtė G., Aleliūnas A., Gibon Y., Armonienė R. 2022. The effect of cold acclimation, deacclimation and reacclimation on metabolite profiles and freezing tolerance in winter wheat. Frontiers in  Plant Science, 13: 959118. IF – 6,627
3. Vaitkevičiūtė G., Aleliūnas A., Gibon Y., Armonienė R. 2022. Comparative analysis of antioxidant accumulation under cold acclimation, deacclimation and reacclimation in winter wheat. Plants, 11 (21): 2818. IF – 4,658
4. Cesevičienė J., Gorash A., Liatukas Ž., Armonienė R., Ruzgas V., Statkevičiūtė G., Jaškūnė K., Brazauskas G. 2022. Grain yield performance and quality characteristics of waxy and non-waxy winter wheat cultivars under high and low-input farming systems. Plants, 11 (7): 882. IF – 4,658
5. Jaškūnė K., Armonienė R., Liatukas Ž., Statkevičiūtė G., Cesevičienė J., Brazauskas G. 2022. Relationship between freezing tolerance and leaf growth during acclimation in winter wheat. Agronomy, 12 (4), 859. IF – 3,949
6. Statkevičiūtė G., Liatukas Ž., Cesevičienė J., Jaškūnė K., Armonienė R., Kuktaite R., Brazauskas G. 2022. Impact of combined drought and heat stress and nitrogen on winter wheat productivity and end-use quality. Agronomy, 12: 1452. IF – 3,949

7. Verikaitė K., Ramanauskienė J., Armonienė R., Ronis A. 2022. Evaluation of fungicide application programmes for Septoria tritici blotch control in winter wheat. Zemdirbyste-Agriculture, 109 (2): 149–156. IF – 1,281

8. Gorash A., Armonienė R., Kazan K. 2021. Can effectoromics and loss-of-susceptibility be exploited for improving Fusarium head blight resistance in wheat? The Crop Journal, 9 (1): 1–16. IF – 4,647
9. Liatukas Ž., Ruzgas V., Gorash A., Cecevičienė J., Armonienė R., Statkevičiūtė G., Jaškūnė K., Brazauskas G. 2021. Development of the new waxy winter wheat cultivars Eldija and Sarta. Czech Journal of Genetics and Plant Breeding, 57: 149−157. IF – 1,304
10. Aleliūnas A., Jaškūnė K., Statkevičiūtė G., Vaitkevičiūtė G., Brazauskas G., Armonienė R. 2020. Transcriptome changes triggered by a short-term low temperature stress in winter wheat. Zemdirbyste-Agriculture, 107 (4): 329–336. IF – 1,083
    
11. Odilbekov F., Armonienė R., Koc A., Svensson J., Chawade A. 2019. GWAS assisted genomic prediction to predict resistance to Septoria tritici blotch in Nordic winter wheat at seedling stage. Frontiers in Genetics. IF – 3,258
12. Odilbekov F., He X., Armonienė R., Saripella G. V., Henriksson T., Singh P. K., Chawade A. 2019. QTL mapping and transcriptome analysis to identify differentially expressed genes induced by Septoria tritici blotch disease of wheat. Agronomy, 9 (9): 510. IF – 2,603

13. Odilbekov F., Armonienė R., Henriksson T. and Chawade A. 2018. Proximal phenotyping and machine learning methods to identify Septoria tritici blotch disease symptoms in wheat. Frontiers in Plant Science, 9: 685. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2018.00685. IF – 3,517

14. Chawade A., Armonienė R., Berg G., Brazauskas G., Frostgård G., Geleta M., Gorash A., Henriksson T., Himanen K., Ingver A., Johansson E., Jørgensen L.N., Koppel M., Koopel R., Makela P., Otriz R., Podyma W., Roitsch T., Ronis A., Svensson J.T., Wallenback P., Weih M. 2018. A transnational and holistic breeding approach is needed for sustainable wheat production in the Baltic Sea region. Physiologia Plantarum, 67 (4): 442–451. IF – 3,000

15. Armonienė R., Odilbekov F., Vivekanand V., Chawade A. 2018. Affordable imaging lab for noninvasive analysis of biomass and early vigour in cereal crops. BioMed Research International, 2018: 5713158, doi:10.1155/2018/5713158. IF – 2,197

16. Gorash A., Armonienė R., Mitchell Fetch J., Liatukas Ž., Danytė V. 2017. Aspects in oat breeding: nutrition quality, nakedness and disease resistance, challenges and perspectives. Annals of Applied Biology, 171 (3): 281–302. DOI: 10.1111/aab.12375. IF – 2,046  
17. Gorash A., Armonienė R., Liatukas Ž., Brazauskas G. 2017. The relationship among freezing tolerance, vernalization requirement, Ppd alleles and winter hardiness in European wheat cultivars. Journal of Agricultural Science, 155 (9): 1353–1370. DOI: 10.1017/S0021859617000521. IF – 1,291
18. Stukonis V., Armonienė R., Lemežienė N., Kemešytė V., Statkevičiūtė G. 2015. Identification of fine-leaved species of genus Festuca by molecular methods. Pakistan Journal of Botany, 47 (3): 1137–1142. IF – 0,822
19. Dabkevičienė G., Lemežienė N., Norkevičienė E., Liatukas Ž., Cesevičienė J., Armonienė R., Butkutė B. 2015: Variability of nuclear DNA content and agromorphological characteristics of switchgrass (Panicum virgatum L.) germplasm in Lithuania. Zemdirbyste-Agriculture, 102 (2): 153–158. IF – 0,567
20. Armonienė R., Liatukas Ž., Brazauskas G. 2013. Evaluation of freezing tolerance of winter wheat (Triticum aestivum L.) under controlled conditions and in the field. Zemdirbyste-Agriculture, 100 (4): 417–424. IF – 0,567
21. Armonienė R., Jonavičienė K., Ruzgas V., Brazauskas G. 2013. Isolation of differentially expressed genes in wheat caryopses with contrasting starch granule size. Central European Journal of Biology, 8 (3): 297–305. IF – 0,818

Other peer-reviewed publications

1. Armonienė R., Brazauskas G.. 2014. Nonsense-mediated decay of sucrose synthase 1 mRNA with induced premature chain termination codon during cold acclimation in winter wheat. Turkish Journal of Botany, 38: 1147–1156.

Monographs, books, textbooks and their sections published by international publishers

1. Armonienė R., Stukonis V., Paplauskienė V., Brazauskas G. 2010. The genetic diversity of fine-leaved fescue (Festuca L.) species in Lithuania. In Sustainable Use of Genetic Diversity in Forage and Turf Breeding. Ed. Huyghe C., Springer Dordrecht, p. 41–45. ISBN: 978-90-481-8705-8