News Archiv | Departement Umweltwissenschaften

Kick-off for New Research Project MICROTS

21.08.2025
With a kick-off meeting at FiBL we have started into our new project MICROTS. The project is a collaboration of the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (Dr. Valentin Gfeller), the University of Basel (Dr. Pascale Flury) and the company MycoSolutions (Dr. Nadine Brinkmann) and is funded by the Swiss Federal Office for Agriculture (FOAG).

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Research Portait Klaus Schläppi

20.08.2025
The new research portrait of Klaus Schläppi ist published. mehr

Welcome Rémi

18.08.2025

Rémi Petrolli did his PhD at the National Museum of Natural History in Paris. He worked on the (molecular) ecology of plant-fungal interactions. He will work as postdoctoral researcher on the new SNSF project “Deep soil ectomycorrhizal communities of beech forests” where we work on uncovering the hidden species diversity and functional properties of ectomycorrhizal communities in deep layers of forest soils. This collaborative project includes Ing. Sven Hopf, Dr. Simon Tresch and Dr. Sabine Braun from the Institute for Applied Plant Biology (Witterswil, Switzerland) and Prof. Björn Lindahl from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden).

Group Outing: Rafting Adventure on the Aare

On August 19th, we left Basel and headed to the Aare river for an unforgettable rafting adventure. The locals call it “Aareböötle”. With three boats — senior members, PhDs, and master’s students (and yes, there was even a dinosaur on the master’s boat!) — the day was filled with paddling, laughter, and a bit of racing spirit. Taking a dip from the boat was so much fun, even if climbing back in was a bit tricky! Halfway through, we stopped at a quiet spot to enjoy lunch together and take a refreshing swim. We also soaked up the scenery and summer vibes before hopping back in to float further downstream. The perfect finish? We wrapped up the day in Bern with ice cream in hand, sun on our faces, and big smiles all around. It was the perfect mix of fun, relaxation, and team spirit!
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Congratulations Irene for your MSc degree!

27.05.2025
In her MSc thesis, Irene Reimann-Ortega explored how bark amendments influence the disease-suppressive and growth-promoting properties of compost. The study was driven by a practical challenge: during the production of a new crop protection product, large amounts of larch bark are generated as a by-product. Irene investigated whether this bark could be effectively valorised by incorporating it into the composting process. By composting larch bark together with chicken manure, a compost with disease-suppressive qualities was obtained—suitable for use as a substrate amendment in crop production.
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PMI at the EUCOR Plant Science Masters’ Symposium - Strasbourg 2025

12.05.2025
We travelled to Strasbourg for the EUCOR Plant Science Masters’ Symposium on May 12th, which offered a mix of career-oriented discussions and scientific presentations. We presented posters showcasing our group’s research and had a fantastic time connecting with students from across the EUCOR network. It was a perfect blend of science, sunshine, and shared curiosity!

Congratulations Andreas for your MSc degree!

20.02.2025
In his MSc thesis, Andreas Berlepsch-Valendas studied the fungus Neofabraea alba, which causes post-harvest rots on apples and is responsible for significant storage losses in Switzerland. Despite the economic importance of this pathogen, especially in organic apple production, very little is known about its biology and potential control measures. Andreas carried out his master's thesis at the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture. He tested different inoculation protocols for artificial infection with Neofabraea. He developed a Neofabraea-specific qPCR method with which he was able to quantify Neofabraea spores in spore trap samples over an entire apple growing season. He also tested different crop protection products for their efficacy in preventing storage rots caused by Neofabraea spp..
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EUCOR Seed Money Project Grant

03.02.2025
A consortium from the University of Basel (Pascale Flury), the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (Islam Khattab, Peter Nick) and the Université de Haute-Alsace (Julie Chong, Loïc Yung) has been awarded an EUCOR Seed Money project grant for the Roots of Resilience project. The project tries to render grapevine more resilient against climate-change born novel fungal diseases ("Esca & Co") through improved microbial communities in the rhizosphere. The project starts in February 2025 and runs for two years.
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Welcome Thais

01.01.2025

Thais Guillen Otero obtained her PhD from the University of Zurich where she worked on the diversity and evolution of mycorrhizal fungi and ferns. She will work as postdoctoral researcher on the new SNSF project “Deep soil ectomycorrhizal communities of beech forests” where we work on uncovering the hidden species diversity and functional properties of ectomycorrhizal communities in deep layers of forest soils. This collaborative project includes Ing. Sven Hopf, Dr. Simon Tresch and Dr. Sabine Braun from the Institute for Applied Plant Biology (Witterswil, Switzerland) and Prof. Björn Lindahl from the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (Uppsala, Sweden).

Welcome Fiona

01.12.2024

Fiona Fitchett started her PhD in December 2024 on a joint project of the University of Basel and the Research Institute of Organic agriculture.. Fiona obtained a double degree in Agricultural Sciences Engineering at ENSAIA (National School of Agronomy and Food Industries) and Plant-Environment Interactions (MSc AETPF-IPE) at University of Lorraine, Nancy, France. She will study the microbiota of composts to find new bacterial or fungal strains with a protective effect against important foliar diseases such as grapevine downy mildew. The investigation of compost microbes and their metabolites will help to develop sustainable alternatives to conventional fungicides such as copper. mehr

Welcome Nicole

01.12.2024
Nicole joins the plant microbe interaction group to support us in laboratory. Particularly with her background in Microbiology and long-term laboratory experience, she will be a strong asset for the group.

New Study: A Combination of Few Physicochemical and Fungal Parameters Can Explain the Soil-Dependent Variation in Wheat Biomass After Inoculation With Cladosporium tenuissimum

03.12.2024
In this work lead by Lena von Saldern and Loïc Thurre we showed that only six soil parameters were sufficient to explain most of the variation of wheat responses to inoculation with C. tenuissimum. Combining physicochemical and fungal soil parameters outperformed models using only one of the two types of data. This work serves as proof-of-concept that effectivity of microbial inoculants can be modelled from soil parameters paving the way forward towards predictions of inoculant efficacy in different field conditions. mehr

Highly Cited Researcher 2024

21.11.2024
Klaus Schlaeppi: “I am honoured to be listed among the Highly Cited Researchers in 2024 in the category Cross-Field [some self-glitter ✨]. ALL credits go to my wonderful family, the GREAT TEAM and colleagues, great collaborations and funders. - Merci 🙏 mehr

UNINOVA: Der richtige Bakterienmix für eine bessere Ernte

1.11.2024
Um optimal zu gedeihen, beeinflussen Pflanzen die Bakteriengemeinschaft an ihren Wurzeln. Herauszufinden, wie ihnen das gelingt, ist wichtig für die Entwicklung neuer Biodünger für eine nachhaltigere Landwirtschaft. mehr

Congratulations to all PMI graduates for the Master in Biology. Nice to see the proud and happy faces at the graduation ceremony. Well deserved!

1 November 2024 mehr

Hiring: Postdoctoral researcher Ecology of deep soil forest fungi

21.10.2024 mehr

Group outing Furka

20.08.2024
We enjoyed a fantastic group outing to the Furkapass on August 19th-20th. Going to the high altitudes during peak summer heat is seldomly a bad idea. Add perfect weather conditions and you are guaranteed a breathtaking experience. We dared the iconic road up the mountain pass, took in the dwindling Rhône glacier (enjoy it while it lasts!) and carried ourselves up to the Sidelen hut for a cosy night spent with little sleep (let’s blame the altitude and not the louder sleepers among us) and true hospitality at 2708 m. Finally, we had the pleasure to be welcomed by Erika Hiltbrunner and her team of the “Alpine Research and Training Centre” (ALPFOR) who introduced us to research under slightly more difficult circumstances: you try running an experiment that requires a 1h hike to get to site and has to withstand metres of snow, heavy storms and cheeky marmots! mehr

Study in Nature Communications: The lactonase BxdA mediates metabolic specialisation of maize root bacteria to benzoxazinoids

02.08.2024
In this work lead by Dr. Lisa Thoenen and with important contributions by Dr. Christine Pestalozzi, Dr. Marco Kreuzer and Anlun Wei, we systematically investigated how maize root bacteria cope with the bioactive compounds that maize plants release from their roots. We found that, while root bacteria from other plant species cannot, maize root bacteria can metabolise the main bioactive compounds of maize. These maize bacteria, particularly Sphingobium and microbacteria, have a unique gene (a lactonase, bxdA) allowing them to specifically adapt to the roots of maize plants. mehr

New Article: Understanding plant responsiveness to microbiome feedbacks

18.07.2024
For this article in Current Opinion in Plant Biology Henry Janse van Rensburg and Katja Stengele systematically decomposed plant microbiome interactions into two directions – the ‘plant > microbiome’ and the ‘microbiome > plant’ processes – to identify methodological challenges and research priorities. A major conclusion was that while we begin to understand the plant processes leading microbiome assembly, we still know very little how plants respond to soil microbiomes and how they benefit form microbiome feedbacks. A ‘primer’ for more work to come… mehr

Congratulations Loïc for your MSc degree!

21.05.2024
In his MSc work, Loïc Thurre investigated the predictability of field inoculations of maize with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. A first model, based on physiochemical parameters and fungal communities, can predict some degree of inoculation success. Loïc looked into including soil bacterial community data of the for modelling. Furthermore, he tested the predictability of 10 new field inoculations using that first model. Key findings were that soil bacteria increased the total modeled variance up to 95 % and that the predictions of the new fields were insufficient because of model overfitting and/or lack of training data.
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Uni News: Mais wehrt sich gegen Arsen im Boden

02.04.2024
Wenn Kulturpflanzen auf arsenhaltigen Böden wachsen, sammelt sich das giftige Element in der Nahrungskette an. Eine Studie mit Beteiligung der Universität Basel hat nun einen Mechanismus nachgewiesen, mit dem Maispflanzen die Aufnahme von Arsen reduzieren: Dafür verantwortlich ist ein spezieller Wirkstoff, den Wurzeln in den Boden abgeben. mehr

Study in PNAS: Root-exuded specialized metabolites reduce arsenic toxicity in maize

21.03.2024
Toxic arsenic in soil can reduce crop yields and, when taken up by plants, enter the food chain with severe negative impacts on animal and human health. Veronica Caggìa investigated the earlier evidence that maize plants accumulated lower amounts of arsenic compared to other plant species. She revealed a mechanism how maize reduces arsenic accumulation and toxicity. Benzoxazinoids are a class of specialized metabolites of cereals like wheat and maize. When exuded from roots, these metabolites reduce arsenic uptake and improve plant performance in greenhouse and field experiments. Also a subsequent maize generation benefited with enhanced performance from benzoxazinoid exudation into soil with high levels of arsenic. A possible application of this discovery is the development of hyper-releasing cultivars and growing them at contaminated sites to reduce arsenic entry to the food chain. mehr

Congratulations Viola for your MSc degree!

15.03.2024
Viola D’Adda investigated the context-dependency of soil microbial feedbacks on plants. She compared Arabidopsis plants grown on two variants of a soil, which differ in their microbiomes due to pre-cultivation of two different maize lines. The microbial feedbacks between the soil variants consisted of differences in growth and defense against a fungal pathogen. Viola showed that the ‘direction’ of the feedbacks – whether positive, neutral or negative – depended on soil origin. The soils originated from a field with a strong gradient in soil chemistry. Collectively, her work suggests that soil chemistry defines the ‘direction’ of the observed microbial feedbacks.
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Teaching award for 2023 block course “Plant Biology”

13.03.2024

Every year, the teaching commission of the biology curriculum asks the students to evaluate lectures, courses and seminars. The block course “Plant Biology” was recognized as one of the three best rated courses of the spring and fall semesters 2023.

Syngenta-PSC Fellowship for P. Flury, G. Garland, and S. Dötterl

11.03.2024
We are happy to announce that the project 'Biocontrol composts: Tackling soilborne plant diseases in a changing climate' has been selected for a Syngenta-PSC Fellowship. The project will be led by Pascale Flury (Unibas, PMI) together with Gina Garland and Sebastian Dötterl from ETH Zurich and will include a collaboration with the Research Institute of Organic Agriculture (FiBL). We are excited that Eva Burgunder will soon start as a PhD student on this project. She will be studying how climate change impacts the development of soilborne diseases and how a combination of compost and biocontrol agents can improve soil and plant health under different climatic conditions.

https://www.plantsciences.uzh.ch/en/research/fellowships/syngenta.html

Congratulations Eva for your MSc degree!

27.02.2024
In her MSc thesis, Eva Burgunder studied the role of Pseudomonas communities in the disease suppression by composts. Using a recently developed amplicon sequencing method that provides unprecedented resolution within the genus Pseudomonas, she compared the Pseudomonas communities in the rhizoplane of plants grown in suppressive and non-suppressive composts. Her analysis revealed that the Pseudomonas communities derived from composts that were effective against a soilborne pathogen were distinct from those from ineffective composts.
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Congratulations Caitlin for your MSc degree!

30.01.2024
In her MSc thesis, Caitlin Giroud studied whether root bacteria differ in their capacity to deal with host-specific plant secondary metabolites. She examined maize and Arabidopsis bacteria for their tolerance and metabolization of maize-derived benzoxazinoids and Arabidopsis-derived coumarins. The vitro experiments revealed that native bacteria tolerate the
specialized metabolites from their host plant better than non-host bacteria. This work suggests that bacterial strains adapt to the exudate compounds of their host plants.
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Congratulations Lena for your MSc degree!

25.01.2024
Lena von Saldern investigated the effectivity of a fungal inoculum for its prospects seedling establishment. In her MSc work she studied the context-dependence of successful fungal inoculations. The inoculum only mildly supported wheat establishment and mostly in combination with a fertilization treatment. Lena von Saldern found a model combining biological, physical, and chemical soil parameters that explained 90% of the soil-to-soil variation in inoculation success!
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Study in Nature Microbiology: Soil microbiome indicators can predict crop growth response to large-scale inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi

29.11.2023
Arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi are known to enhance plant nutrient uptake and reduce plant stress. However, agricultural implementation suffers from unpredictable inoculation success. We have conducted large-scale field-inoculations with the goal to model the variable effects on maize yield. With few soil parameters and mainly soil fungal indicators, we could predict the inoculation effects in 9 out of 10 fields! Our results reveal that inoculation success is predicable thereby enabling developments towards soil microbiome diagnostics as a tool for sustainable agriculture. mehr

Highly Cited Researcher 2023

15.11.2023
Klaus Schlaeppi: “Honored to be on Clarivate’s 2023 list of Highly Cited Researchers again. All thanks and credits to my GREAT team!”
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Congratulations Sam for your MSc degree!

3.11.2023
In his MSc thesis ‘Growth Regulating Transcription Factors and Massilia bacteria in Plant Microbiome Feedbacks’, Sam investigated the involvement of Growth Regulating Transcription Factors in plant soil feedbacks by generating and testing grf mutants. Secondly, Sam isolated 316 bacteria strains from Arabidopsis roots and assembled with them a new strain collection. With both achievement, Sam established very useful group resources.

Study in PNAS: Bacterial tolerance to host-exuded specialized metabolites structures the maize root microbiome

25.10.2023
Diverse microbial communities colonize plant roots, where they feed on compounds secreted from their host plant. Lisa Thoenen has built a strain collection of maize root bacteria to study how they cope with benzoxazinoids, the main bioactive compounds secreted by maize. We find that bacteria strains differ greatly in their tolerance to benzoxazinoids and that tolerance against these selective antibiotic compounds depended on bacterial cell wall structure. We found that native root bacteria isolated from maize tolerated the benzoxazinoids better compared to nonhost Arabidopsis bacteria, suggesting adaptation of the root bacteria to specialized metabolites of their host plant. Importantly, we found that bacterial tolerance to the most abundant and most selective compound correlated significantly with the abundance of the bacteria on maize roots. This finding highlights bacterial tolerance to root-derived antimicrobial compounds as an underlying mechanism determining the community structure of host-specific microbiomes. mehr

Group outing at FIBL

On August 29th, we had a fantastic group outing to the FIBL in Frick. After an inspiring scientific exchange, we were given a very interesting tour of the institute. FIBL's hospitality was much appreciated and we enjoyed some amazing organic food. Later in the afternoon, we braved the rain with our colorful umbrellas and went for a hike on the famous "Chriesiwäg" and rounded off the day with a delicious ice cream. Thanks again to FIBL for hosting us! mehr

Study: Soil chemical and microbial gradients determine accumulation of root‐exuded secondary metabolites and plant–soil feedbacks in the field

4 August 2023
Valentin Gfeller and Selma Cadot performed a maize-wheat rotation experiment in a field with a strong soil gradient to study the context dependency of plant soil feedbacks. These feedbacks occur in response to plant release of exudates, which cause abiotic and biotic changes in the surrounding soil that then ‘feedback’ on the performance of the next generation of plants. Maize root exudates contain bioactive benzoxazinoids that can cause positive feedbacks on wheat yield. To test the effect of benzoxazinoids along the soil gradient, we grew wild-type and benzoxazinoid-deficient maize plants in the first year and then wheat in the second year. First, we confirmed the strong field gradient in soil chemistry and microbiomes. Because of the gradient, no feedback effects would be seen when simply averaging the data across the field. Instead we included the gradient into the calculations and detected pronounced feedbacks that gradually changed from negative to positive across the field. Yield was enhanced in one field corner, while being decreased in the other and this change of feedback can be explained by the standing chemical and microbial gradients. With this study we highlight that understanding within‐field soil heterogeneity is crucial for future exploitation of plant–soil feedbacks in sustainable precision agriculture. mehr

Study: Plant secondary metabolite-dependent plant-soil feedbacks can improve crop yield in the field

1 August 2023
In this work led by Valentin Gfeller, we studied the agronomic relevance of secondary metabolite mediated plant soil feedbacks. Plants secrete secondary metabolites from their roots to soil to alter the biotic and abiotic properties and this affects the performance of the next generation of plants. From greenhouse experiments we knew that maize-exuded benzoxazinoids impact the performance of wheat and here, we tested if these feedbacks occur in ‘real life’, i.e. in crop rotation in the field. We assessed three winter wheat varieties growing in field plots whose soils had been conditioned by either wild-type or benzoxazinoid-deficient maize plants. Following maize cultivation, we detected benzoxazinoid-dependent chemical and microbial changes in the soil, increase wheat biomass and also decreased insect herbivore abundance in benzoxazinoid-conditioned soils. Importantly, yield was increased by over 4% without a reduction in grain quality in benzoxazinoid-conditioned soils. Taken together, here we show that soil conditioning with plant secondary metabolites can increase yield via plant-soil feedbacks under agronomically realistic conditions. Hence, if these feedbacks function across different soils and environments, optimizing root exudation chemistry could be a powerful strategy to enhance crop yields without additional inputs. mehr

Study: A symbiotic footprint in the plant root microbiome

31 July 2023
In this study, conducted by Natacha Bodenhausen, Kyle Hartman and Marc Schmid, we explored how arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF) and rhizobium symbionts contribute plant root microbiome structure. We grew 17 plant species from five families differing in their symbiotic associations (no symbioses, AMF only, rhizobia only, or AMF and rhizobia) in natural soil and we characterized their root microbiomes. Besides plant phylogeny and species identity, we find that the type of symbioses also presented a significant driver of community composition. We find groups of microbes that were specific for the different symbioses and importantly, these ‘symbiosis footprints’ were also apparent removing the primary symbionts mycorrhiza and rhizobia from the dataset. Overall, we find evidence for microbiome imprints – which we term the symbiotypes – that reflect the symbiotic associations of the host plant. mehr

Study: Glyphosate and terbuthylazine effects on soil functions, microbiome composition and crop performance

13 July 2023
Veronica Caggìa led a study where we tested the hypothesis that herbicide application changes the soil microbiome that then negatively feeds back on plant growth. We found that bacteria were more sensitive to glyphosate and terbuthylazine application than fungi, but that herbicide application did not affect subsequent maize performance. We found that herbicide levels in soil varied a lot with time and soil moisture. This points to the importance of understanding the context-dependency of rapid herbicide degradation in order to avoid negative repercussions on non-target organisms and soil functions. mehr

Predicting soil fungal communities from chemical and physical properties

21.06.2023
In this work led by Natacha Bodenhausen we developed code that allows to predict the composition of soil fungal communities based on physicochemical soil data using multivariate ordination. The idea behind is that reliable prediction of microbial communities from chemical soil properties, which farmers often have, could bypass the sequencing‐based generation of microbiota data, thereby making soil microbiome information available for agricultural purposes such as pathogen monitoring, field inoculation or yield projections. mehr

Congratulations Claudia for your MSc degree!

16.05.2023
In her MSc thesis ‘Microbial community dynamics and their impact on plant performance under phosphorous limiting conditions’, Claudia studied the microbe-induced growth promotion of A. thaliana under P-limiting conditions. Examination of bacterial communities did revealed no major alteration of community composition in response to varying levels of P. However, she identified efficient phosphate solubilizing strains among the abundant root bacteria, which probably help the plants to mitigate stress by P-limitation. This work was motivated by the vision that phosphate solubilizing root bacteria can be used to enhance crop productivity in a sustainable way.
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Picture «Maize root microbiome» was awarded in SNSF Scientific Image Competition

27.04.2023
The picture submitted by Lisa Thönen shows extracts from maize roots on an agar plate containing plant specialized metabolites produced by maize, benzoxazinoids. The bacteria which can metabolise the compounds appear red. The jury commented: “The intriguing photograph acts as a poetic window into a new world awaiting discovery: the microbe communities living under our feet. We might not exactly know what we are looking at, but we still feel attracted to its material presence and enigmatic beauty. While the picture reminds us of both the micro- and macrocosmos, the container puts them on a human scale”. Each year the Swiss National Science Foundation awards images that researchers submit form their work. All pictures can be viewed here and covered by an article in SRF and NZZ. Pictures will be presented in the exhibition “Beauties of science” at the Biel Festival of Photography 2023 (5 – 28 May 2023).

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Welcome Hilal

14.04.2023
Hilal Civelek obtained her MSc degree from the Gebze Technical University in Turkey. Given her outstanding performance, Hilal has been awarded a PhD scholarship by the Turkish Ministry of Education. With her expertise in genetics, she will be working on the topic of the SNF project ‘Plant Responsiveness to Microbiota Feedbacks’.

Group retreat

13.03.2023
Earlier in March, our recently grown group made their way to Engelberg for our first ever retreat. During our 3-day stay in the Zschokke-House on Gerschnialp, extensive science sessions were held, where we learnt more about what each group member is working on. Besides having exciting discussions and transfering knowledge, time was spent curling, skiing, snow tubing and hiking. Everyone is hoping for a next retreat to happen! mehr

Merci Jürg!

Thank you, Dr. Oetiker, for all your contributions to botany and teaching at the Basel University. What a memorable fare well party. We had lots of fun with your miracle fruits.
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Welcome Mikiko

01.02.2023
Mikiko Karasawa obtained a European Master degree in ‘Plant Health in Sustainable Cropping Systems’ after research stays in Valencia and Utrecht. In her PhD, she will investigate the underlying mechanisms of host specificity of plant microbiomes, specifically looking into the metabolic specialization of root microbiomes. Mikiko will work in the ERC project ‘Decoding microbiota feedbacks on plants – mifeePs’.

Welcome Anlun

01.02.2023
Anlun Wei graduated with a Master’s degree at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. He will develop in his PhD methodology for the generation of bacterial mutant libraries. He will then apply this resource to uncover the genetics of maize root bacteria and their traits to cope with the secondary metabolites of their host plant. Anlun will work in the ERC project ‘Decoding microbiota feedbacks on plants – mifeePs’.

Welcome Ellen

01.02.2023
Ellen recently completed her apprenticeship as laboratory technician. She has a background in agrobiology with special trainings in molecular biology and phytopathology. Ellen joins the team to become our robotics specialist for next generation sequencing applications and thereby, she holds a key position in the plant microbe interaction group

Welcome Christine

01.02.2023
Christine obtained her PhD from the ETH Zurich where she continued as postdoc and senior assistant in the group of Prof. Julia Vorholt. She did seminal contributions to the field of phyllosphere biology, e.g. mapping metabolic interactions within the phyllosphere microbiome or demonstrating direct plant protection by the phyllosphere bacteria. Christine is a microbiologist with profound expertise in microbial genetics and bioinformatics. Christine will head the team working on the ERC project ‘Decoding microbiota feedbacks on plants -mifeePs’

Congratulations!

15.12.2022
Veronica Caggìa, Lisa Thoenen and Valentin Gfeller have successfully defended their PhDs. #PhDsisters #PhDbrother #dreamteam

Highly Cited Researcher 2022

Klaus Schlaeppi: “Honored to be named a #HighlyCited2022 researcher by @ClarivateAG. Many thanks and credits to my great team @unibas_en, collaborators and colleagues!” mehr

Group outing Wasserfallen

On the 23th of August, our group exchanged their desks and lab benches for the great outdoors. We took the cable car from Reigoldswil up to Wasserfallen. Up there we did a hike with a lovely view of the Alps, followed by lunch and a short break before heading down again. At the end, the brave ones did a downhill “scooter” ride back to Reigoldswil. We also had the chance to get to know each other and the new team members better. We’re already looking forward to our next group adventure, and hopefully many new faces joining us!
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Congratulations Lisa

19.08.2022
The ISME is the biggest conference in microbial ecology. This year it took place in Lausanne. Out of 1700 presented posters, the poster presented by Lisa Thönen won a student poster award. It shows that maize root bacteria metabolize host secondary metabolites. As a product, they form a red coloured degradation product. In her PhD, Lisa investigates where, how and why bacteria evolved this trait.

Congratulations Vero

11.8.2022
Our PhD student Veronica Caggìa (no 6) won the World Championship of Indiaca with the Swiss women's team in Luxemburg.

Welcome Pascale

1.08.2022
Pascale Flury joins the plant microbe interaction group as research associate. During her PhD and postdoc she worked on the genomics and the ecology of interactions of plant-beneficial Pseudomonas bacteria with pest insects with Profs. Monika Maurhofer (ETH Zurich) and Christoph Keel (University of Lausanne). She enriches the group with expertise related to #plant pathology, #biological control, #molecular diagnostics, #soil-borne plant diseases and #microbiology of compost.

mifeePs - decoding microbiota feedbacks on plants

7.07.2022
How to decode this wonderful letter head?

Horizon Europe (HORIZON) Call: ERC-2021-COG
= This is communication relates to the Horizon Europe call for Consolidator Grants of the European Research Council from the year 2021

Project: 101044525 — mifeePs
= This is communication refers to the project mifeePs (which has the given project number)
PS: mifeePs stands for decoding microbiota feedbacks on plants and present the project submitted by Klaus Schlaeppi to the ERC COG call in 2021

GAP invitation letter (from reserve list)
= GAP stands for grant preparation; An ‘invitation for grant preparation’ simply means that the project was selected for funding; a COG project is worth 2M € - Rock n’roll!
= reserve list means that the project mifeePs - although favorably evaluated - it’s ranking was initially not high enough given the budget limit of the call. It now has moved from the reserve to the main list because higher ranked proposals dropped out or additional funding became available. Rock n’roll!

Highly Cited Researcher 2021

1.12.2021
Each year, Clarivate™ identifies the world’s most influential researchers ─ they select few who have been most frequently cited by their peers over the last decade. In 2021, fewer than 6,700, or about 0.1%, of the world's researchers, in 21 research fields and across multiple fields, have earned this exclusive distinction.

Klaus Schläppi is among this elite group recognized for his exceptional research influence, demonstrated by the production of multiple highly-cited papers that rank in the top 1% by citations for field and year in the Web of Science™.
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Block Course 'Plant Biology' 2021

4.10.2021
The motivated and interested undergraduate students perform exciting experiments and learn about the fascinating field of 'Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions’. For the first time this part of the block course takes place at the new Biocentrum.
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Group outing Gorges de l’Areuse

On August 17th, our group exchanged their desks and their labwork for the great outdoors. We spent a GORGEous day following the wild river Areuse through all its twists and turns, eating delicious trout in the sunshine and getting to know each other better. We’re already looking forward to our next group adventure, and hopefully many new faces joining us!
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Welcome Charlotte

1.8.2021
Charlotte Joller studied Biology at the University of Fribourg and graduated in plant and microbial sciences. She will decipher plant exudate and root microbiota dynamics during pathogen attack in a Zurich-Basel Plant Science Center – Syngenta Research Fellowship project in collaboration with Prof. Joëlle Schläpfer, University of Zürich.

Welcome Katja

1.06.2021
Katja Stengele obtained her MSc degree from the University of Bern. She will investigate the underlying mechanisms of Arabidopsis growth feedbacks to soil microbes in her PhD.

Specific and conserved patterns of microbiota-structuring by maize benzoxazinoids in the field

11.05.2021
In the work led by Selma Cadot we show that Benzoxazinoids, a class of defensive root exudate compounds, function in selectively structuring the assembly of root and rhizosphere microbiotas across different field conditions. Have a look at the video abstract. mehr

Microbiome diagnostics for sustainable agriculture

26.04.2021
We are grateful to the Gebert Rüf Foundation for project support to work on improving field inoculation with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. Special thanks got to Julia Hess (Agroscope) and Dr. Natacha Bodenhausen (FiBL) driving this project with many, many helpers. Have a look at our final impact clip. mehr

Plant chemistry and food web health

8.4.2021
Did you ever think about phytochemicals being systemically relevant? In this article, we took perspective of a food web and we highlight the role of bioactive phytochemicals in linking soils, plants, animals and humans and discuss their contributions to systems health.

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New Plant Room

6.4.2021
In our plant room at Bernoullianum we started to use the new lightchambers. We have 3 Percivals with humidity / light and temperature control and 2 Percivals with only light and temperature control. All together we have a total area of over 10m2 to grow plants under specific conditions.

Welcome Lea

1.04.2021
New postdoc in the plant microbe interaction group! Lea Stauber has recently completed her PhD working on lifestyle evolution of Cryphonectria fungi in the group of Prof. Daniel Croll at the University of Neuchatel. Lea will work on establishing RNAseq in the group and investigating Arabidopsis’ responses to microbiota feedbacks.

Introducing our Pheno Box

24.03.2021
The PhenoBox allows the automated quantification of 3D plant growth phenotypes in a non-invasive way. It automatically captures images of a plant from different angles and measures with an underlying image analysis algorithm over 200 phenotypic features (more details here). The PhenoBox was constructed following the publicly available construction plans and source code initially developed by Czedik‐Eysenberg et al. (2018, New Phytologist).

Thanks, Jan Wälchli! Special credits got to Daniel Lüscher and Lukas Zimmermann from our Department for their great support constructing the Phenobox!
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Welcome Henry

1.03.2021
Henry Janse van Rensburg joins the plant microbe interaction group as postdoc. He has recently finished his PhD on the interplay of metabolism and sugar signaling during biotic stress in the group of Prof. Wim Van den Ende at the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven. Henry will work on the SNF project ‘Plant Responsiveness to Microbiota Feedbacks’.

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