Chemodiversity of Solanum dulcamara: A plant defence strategy?
- Beschreibung
Have you ever wondered why some plant species within a population experience severe herbivore damage, while other plant species remain largely unaffected? Similarly, imagine two individual plants of the same species co-occurring within a natural population: one exhibits extensive herbivore damage, with leaves covered in feeding marks, while the other shows minimal signs of herbivory. What could drive this difference in herbivore susceptibility? One potential driver could be the variation in plant defence traits such as toxic compounds within a plant species. Such intraspecific variation in phytochemistry is one dimension of the huge chemodiversity observed in plants and has been proposed to contribute to plant resistance at the population level.
In this project on the bittersweet night shade, Solanum dulcamara, you can be involved in a mesocosm experiment to evaluate the consequences of chemodiversity at the plot level for plant performance under herbivore pressure by a mixed herbivore community. Plot level chemodiversity is varied by assemblies of genotypes of different phytochemical complexity (high, intermediate, and low) and are exposed to a standardised herbivore community consisting of a specialist on Solanum species (Colorado potato beetle: Leptinotarsa decemlineata) as well as generalists (beet armyworm: Spodoptera exigua and Arion slugs).
- Projektzeitraum
- Sommersemester 2025
- Bewerbungszeitraum
- 01. bis 13.04.2025
- Durchführung
- nach Absprache
- Details zu Projektzeitraum und Durchführung
Project extension is possible and can be negotiated.
- Studienfach
-
Agrarbiologie
Agrarwissenschaften
Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics & Subtropics
Biologie
Crop Sciences
Environmental Protection and Agricultural Food Production
Environmental Science - Soil, Water and Biodiversity
Landscape Ecology - Betreuende
- Kruthika Sen Aragam, Prof.Dr. Anke Steppuhn
- Institut
- Institut für Biologie (190) (Field ecology, Phytochemistry, Plant-Insect interactions)
- Sprache
- englisch
- Teilnehmendenanzahl
- min. 1, max. 2
- Arbeitsaufwand
-
ca. 120 Stunden pro Teilnehmende:r
| 4
ECTS-Punkte
Arbeitsaufwand (Stunden und ggf. ECTS) sind ungefähre Angaben. Die tatsächlich vergebenen ECTS-Punkte ergeben sich aus der tatsächlich geleisteten Arbeit.
- Für dieses Projekt ist kein Motivationsschreiben des Studierenden erforderlich
- Projektart
- experimentell
- Lernziele
-
Die Teilnehmende lernen in diesem Projekt:
You can be involved in experimental setup, data collection and quantification, learn methods such as-
- Field collection and culturing invertebrate herbivores
- Experimental design and statistical analyzes
- Quantifying leaf damage patterns and plant performance
- Chemical analysis by HPLC
- Image and data analysis using different programs: ImageJ and R-studio
- Anmerkungen für Studierende
We accept both bachelor and/or master students