Thais

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).

Nicole

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.

Blockkurs Teaching Award

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.

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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

Hilal

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’.

Mikiko

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’.

Anlun

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’.

Ellen

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

Christine

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’

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Congratulations!

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

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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.

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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.


Pascale

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.

Letter

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!

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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.

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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.

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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.

Lea

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.

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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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