Master projects
Water levels rising:
Flooding Tolerance in Yellow cress and Arabidopsis
With the climate changing and water levels rising, many crop and wild species are being stressed by seasonal floods increasingly. Studying flooding would have a high impact on future crop improvements as well as understanding the evolutionary patterns that shaped speciation. We are studying both the physiological and molecular responses to flooding in Rorippa amphibia and R. sylvestris (Yellow cress), two species found along European rivers with different flooding regimes.
The two species have a relatively high tolerance for flooding, showing almost no mortality after 40 days of complete submergence, with
R. sylvestris surviving up to 3 months. Combining tools developed for the close relative and model species Arabidopsis with Rorippa modelsfor flooding tolerance, the mechanisms would be explored to a higher extent. There are opportunities to do survival and physiological assessment experiments in the greenhouse and also molecular work in the labs. You are also very welcome if you come up with a “great idea” about flooding in Rorippa and Arabidopsis. Possible Projects: 1. Ethylene is the major hormone acting on anoxia sensing and several ethylene response factors (ERF) were found to be important in flooding tolerance in rice and
Arabidopsis. It is possible to translate sequence information from
Arabidopsis and rice to identify and clone those genes from
Rorippa. Since ERFs are a fairly large group, to identify ERF members and to study the expression patterns would give an insight on the different strategies and tolerance of
Rorippa. This project includes gathering and analyzing genetical information, molecular work like cloning and expression analysis in the lab and a lot of pipetting!
2. Ethylene is the major hormone in flooding sensing that leads to leaf elongation. Depending on the ethylene sensitivity plants show different responses to flooding. By studying the ethylene sensitivity and effects of its inhibitors, it is possible to resolve the gaps in the flooding tolerance of
Rorippa. This project includes setting up a complete experiment to study hormone action, applying different regulators to plants to measure responses and of course growing a lot of plants!
3.
Arabidopsis is a good model to study quantitative traits like flooding tolerance since molecular tools and genotyped lines are already available. By using a recombinant inbred line population, we are doing quantitative trait loci analysis and trying to identify genes involved in the process. Further research on the lines that show high variation would resolve the physiological outcomes of the genes, leading to better understanding of their function. This project includes greenhouse experiments, physiological measurements like growth, sugar content etc. and growing a lot of plants!
Any other project that you come up with related to Rorippa, Arabidopsis and submergence is also more than welcome!
