Me

The diversity that surrounds us has always fascinated me. The "Book of Life" has more pages than I can ever read. And every page I open enchants and captivates me. This fascination has accompanied me since my first steps and is still my drive and passion today.

For most, however, this story ends at the surface. For me, it begins right there. The complexity of interactions and feedback loops that take place beneath our feet is simply breathtaking. And right at the center of it are plants, providing one of the foundations of life: photosynthesis. Each plant, however, is also a collective that harbors a multitude of microorganisms. There are fungi that transport nutrients through far-flung networks, bacteria that transform chemical compounds making the elements contained therein available to plants, archaea that promote plant growth and resilience, and so much more.

How these collectives influence the fate of individuals and entire ecosystems is the exciting part for me. Or, to use the words of Louis Pasteur: "Messieurs, c'est les microbes qui auront le dernier mot."

The team

Under the wing of Grégoire FRESCHET, we are a small but dedicated team working with some of the most important organisms on earth: plants and their symbionts.

My PhD here is embedded in basic research on the effects of biodiversity at different scales. From a single species to species communities to entire ecosystems, our team studies the effects of plant and plant symbiont diversity on ecosystem processes.

The project

My work examines how aboveground diversity - the diversity of grassland plant communities - influences belowground diversity and vice versa. This belowground diversity has many faces, but my focus is on the diversity of arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi. These central symbionts of most land plants form one of the oldest extant symbioses in the world and are central to the viability of most plant species.

Therefore, we simulate grassland communities in small, controlled systems called mesocosms that we grow in the greenhouse. In these mesocosms, we control diversity both above and below ground, creating gradients from species-poor to species-rich communities. On these, we measure a broad range of plant, symbiont, and ecosystem-functioning traits. We then combine species- and trait-based diversity measures to understand how plant and fungal diversity interact and how they influence ecosystem processes.

The long-term goal of this work is to gain a better understanding of multitrophic processes in our grassland ecosystems. I believe that plant symbionts, especially mycorrhizae, are a crucial piece in this puzzle. Therefore, another goal of my work is to ultimately derive the basis for a recommended course of action that will enable and encourage farmers to consider these key contributors to their ecosystems.