Diversity in 3 Dimensions: Linking plant phenotypes to their habitat conditions
- Beschreibung
Solanum dulcamara occurs across diverse habitats, with phenotypic plasticity contributing to its ability to tolerate contrasting environmental conditions. This flexibility raises the question of how closely phenotypic variation reflects genetic diversity when plants are grown under a shared environment.
This project will use a new 3-D plant scanner to quantify morphological variation within and among S. dulcamara accessions and examine how it relates to environmental conditions in the regions of their origin and genetic variation. Approximately 12 individuals from each population will be grown under standardized conditions and scanned to characterize traits such as plant height, branching structure, and leaf area. A reproducible scanning and trait-extraction workflow will be established, with selected measurements validated against manual observations. Phenotypic differences among individuals and population-level trait variation can be related to corresponding environmental and genetic data.
The project will deliver a validated phenotyping protocol and an integrated dataset to improve understanding of the relationship between plant morphological traits and environmental and genetic variation.
- Projektzeitraum
- Wintersemester 2026/2027
- Bewerbungszeitraum
- 12. bis 26.10.2026
- Durchführung
- nach Absprache
- Studienfach
-
Agrarbiologie
Agrarwissenschaften
Biologie
Biologie - Lehramt
Biotechnologiy
Crop Sciences
Environmental Protection and Agricultural Food Production
Environmental Science - Soil, Water and Biodiversity
Landscape Ecology
Lebensmittelwissenschaft und Biotechnologie - Betreuende
- Radhika Keshan, Prof.Dr. Anke Steppuhn
- Institut
- Institut für Biologie (190) (Molecular Botany(190a))
- Sprache
- englisch
- Teilnehmendenanzahl
- min. 1, max. 2
- Arbeitsaufwand
-
ca. 90 Stunden pro Teilnehmende:r
| 3
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:
During the project, the student will:
- Review literature on plant phenotypic variation, environmental influences and genetic diversity.
- Gain hands-on experience with a 3-D plant scanner and explore its applications in plant phenotyping.
- Develop and validate a reproducible protocol for scanning plants and extracting morphological traits.
- Investigate relationships between phenotypic traits and environmental conditions in the regions of origin to assess variation within and among accessions.
- Evaluate data quality, measurement reliability, and methodological limitations.
- Anmerkungen für Studierende
- Schlagworte
- Pflanzen, Method, green robust