Upcoming Events

1st RU Workshop November 4-6 2024 at Helmholtz Munich

Phenotypic plasticity and chemodiversity workshop

To join the zoom link click here

Presenters, Titles & Short summaries:

Prof. Dr. Hannah Schneider - Leibniz Institute of Plant Genetics and Crop Plant Research, Gatersleben

Should root plasticity be a crop breeding target?

Crop root systems display a wide range of phenotypic plasticity in anatomical and architectural traits. Root plasticity to nutrient and water deficit will be discussed as well as its potential to improve plant performance and yield. In addition, the feasibility to incorporate trait plasticity into crop breeding programs will be discussed.

Prof. Dr. James Blande - University of Eastern Finland, Joensuu Kuopio, Finland

Volatile-mediated plant-plant interactions in Scots pine: plasticity of plant responses to chemical cues

The widespread coniferous tree, Pinus sylvestris (Scots pine), can respond to herbivore induced volatiles emitted by conspecific neighbours. Responses include an increase in photosynthesis, elevated emission of volatile organic compounds, and increased resistance to stem-feeding weevils. As herbivore induced volatile blends are oxidized and altered over space and time, the responses of receiver plants change accordingly. The significance of this plasticity will be discussed in this talk.

Moritz Popp MSc – Helmholtz Munich, Neuherberg

Understanding Chemical Diversity in Poplar on Different Levels

Poplar trees (Populus spp.) exhibit diverse chemical profiles across different levels within and between trees, influenced by the genome and environmental influences. This talk explores how these chemical profiles are shaped and, in turn, how poplar chemistry affects ecosystems. By examining these multi-level interactions, the aim is to provide insights into interpreting the complexity of chemical diversity in poplars.

Dr. Dominik Ziaja – Bielefeld University, Bielefeld

Multiple levels of chemodiversity and their impacts on Tanacetum vulgare.

Tanacetum vulgare exhibits an extraordinarily high diversity of terpenes which mediate ecological interactions as both volatile and stored compounds. This talk will focus on how the intraspecific chemodiversity on the individual plant- and plot-level differs in T. vulgare and how these levels affect the plants ecological interactions.

Kruthika Aragam MSc – University of Hohenheim, Stuttgart

Potential drivers of chemodiversity in Solanum dulcamara

My project involves investigating of how phytochemical variation in natural plant populations relates to (a)biotic factors in Solanum dulcamara. Although phytochemical diversity is an important dimension of biodiversity, raison d'être of phytochemical diversity is still a matter of debate. Therefore, I aim to disentangle intraspecific variation in plant chemical composition which is assumed to be driven by adaptation to (a)biotic factors that vary in space and time.

Dr. Maximilian Hanusch – Marburg University, Marburg

Chemodiversity as part of the plant trait space and economics spectrum

We examine how biotic and abiotic factors influence chemodiversity and how chemodiversity aligns within the plant economics spectrum. Using empirical data, we quantify changes in chemodiversity in response to herbivory and drought, as well as correlations with morphological plant traits.

Prof. Dr. Dorothea Tholl – Virginia Tech, Blacksburg (VA), USA

Generating terpene diversity in plants and beyond

Specialized metabolites and terpene natural products in particular represent a tremendous chemical diversity that benefits plants and other organisms in their interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment. I will discuss different mechanisms of how plants generate terpene structural diversity from gene to tissue-specific scales. I will further compare these mechanisms between different kingdoms of life with a special focus on recent studies in animal terpene metabolism.

Prof. Dr. Riikka Rinnan – University of Copenhagen, Copenhagen, Denmark

Plant volatiles in the changing Arctic

Arctic areas are experiencing amplified climate warming that is causing changes in vegetation composition, thawing of permafrost, and increasing insect herbivory stress. These concomitant biotic and abiotic changes have strong direct and indirect effects on the production and emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOCs) in arctic ecosystems. I present our recent findings from experimental studies showing how the quantity and diversity of VOC emissions in high latitude ecosystems respond to the ongoing changes.

Frans Thon MSc – Bielefeld University, Bielefeld

The origin and maintenance of chemodiversity: Connecting theory to practice

This talk will give an overview of the hypotheses that seek to explain the evolutionary processes that underpin the origin and maintenance of chemodiversity. I will then show how my model can investigate these hypotheses, and will explain how the results from the first phase have contributed to a 'virtual tanacetum'  and are being used to create a 'virtual solanum'.

Asst. Prof. Dr. Benjamin Delory – Utrecht University, Utrecht, The Netherlands

Does soil chemodiversity mediate plant-soil interactions? – First insights from a plant-soil feedback experiment

So far, the role of organic chemical compounds in soil and their impact on plant-soil feedback mechanisms has been largely overlooked. Given the ecological significance of belowground chemical interactions between plants and soil organisms, a better understanding of these soil chemical legacies within community ecology is needed. This presentation will draw on data from a (rather unusual) plant-soil feedback experiment to elucidate the connections between plant traits and soil chemodiversity. Additionally, it will examine the potential role of soil chemodiversity in mediating plant-soil interactions.

Prof. Dr. Thomas Nägele – Ludwigs-Maximilian-Universität, München

Plasticity of plant primary metabolism and its role in cold acclimation

Primary metabolism plays a central role in plant cold acclimation. Regulation and effects of its plasticity, however, are hardly understood. Here, metabolic plasticity of plants is discussed in context of cold acclimation and adaptation strategies. A toolbox for functional data integration is presented which supports the identification of regulatory strategies from experimental high-throughput studies.

Dr. Xue Xiao – Bielefeld University, Bielefeld

The role of intraspecific chemodiversity: single and combined stresses

Introduction of an experiment exploring the phenotypic plasticity of chemodiversity in more detail, in particular in response to abiotic (drought) and biotic challenges (herbivory) alone and in combination, to better address critical, current questions about responses to climate change.

Dr. Elisabeth Georgii – Helmholtz Munich, Neuherberg

AI meets omics: enabling data-driven discovery

This talk aims to provide some practical guidance on applied AI. Possible challenges and solutions in handling real-world data will be illustrated using plant transcriptome measurements and further omics examples. To highlight the importance of the whole data science lifecycle, preprocessing and explainability techniques will be covered in addition to machine learning and deep learning methods for the omics domain.