Research
Plants never grow alone but instead live in communities with microorganisms and other plants. In order to thrive in these communities, plants have evolved very different strategies to compete with their neighbors for limited resources such as nutrients, water, light, and space. Our research group is interested biochemical interactions in which plants produce and release chemical compounds to interfere with the growth or the development of their neighbors. We want to understand how these chemicals act in the plant, how they influence the complex community of soil-dwelling bacteria and fungi, and how some species have evolved to tolerate the presence of these toxic compounds.
In our second line of research, we study the role of role epigenetic marks in plant-environment interactions; we want to understand how and when epigenetic variation arises, if and how it is inherited, and whether it influences plant physiology and phenotype.
Funding
European Research Council (ERC)
FWF
European Plant Phenotyping Network (EPPN)
EpiDiverse (Marie Curie-Sklodowska Action)
EMBO
Resources
ARADEEPOPSIS – an automated plant phenomics workflow
Link: https://github.com/Gregor-Mendel-Institute/aradeepopsis