Plant ecological genomics

Our main goal is to understand fundamental evolutionary processes generating and maintaining diversity in nature. We primarily focus on natural triggers and evolutionary consequences of whole genome duplication, and on genomic basis of convergent adaptation to challenging environments such as alpine stands and toxic soils. We combine sampling of the extensive natural variation in plant populations with wide range of genomic and ecological approaches. To build our hypotheses, we use comprehensive knowledge of natural variation of our study systems, primarily wild members of the leading plant model genus Arabidopsis.

This enables us to leverage the extensive knowledge on A. thaliana to understand the links between the variation observed in the field and the genomic, functional and eco-physiological background of our study species.