Conveners
Molecular Biodiversity and Evolution
- Michael Gerth (German Centre of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig & Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)
Molecular Biodiversity and Evolution
- Michael Gerth (German Centre of Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig & Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg)
The genomic landscape of meiotic recombination plays an essential role in the evolution of eukaryotes. Patterns of recombination are highly dynamic, with variation along chromosomes, between sexes, individuals, populations, and species. These quantitative variations are driven by allelic variation, environmental factors, and interactions between both. In many eukaryotes, recombination rates...
Polyploidy and hybridisation are important driving forces for angiosperm evolution but pose a challenge for sexual reproduction, as correct meiotic chromosome pairing needs to be established. The odd-ploid widespread European dogroses (Rosa sect. Caninae, 2n = 5x = 35) overcame hybrid sterility by evolving a unique meiosis mechanism: During Canina meiosis two chromosome sets form bivalents...
Seeds harbor diverse microbial communities, both on their surfaces (epiphytes) and within their tissues (endophytes). While seed endophytes remained largely overlooked for decades, recent research highlights their critical roles in seedling development, including promoting nutrient uptake and protecting against pathogens. However, the factors shaping seed and seedling microbiomes remain poorly...
Plant genetics has long relied on the model organism Arabidopsis thaliana, which has been instrumental in uncovering the molecular basis of ecologically important adaptations—such as temperature sensing, flowering time regulation, and communication with microbial and fungal pathogens. However, most gene functions have been studied under controlled laboratory conditions, often overlooking the...
Understanding how plants respond to drought is crucial for predicting the impacts of global change on plant distributions. However, little is known about the eco-evolutionary drivers of intraspecific variation in belowground drought responses. Comparisons between native and non-native populations offer a promising approach to study rapid evolution in belowground traits, as introduced plants...
In plants and animals, pollen and sperm morphology are incredibly diverse across species. Cross-pollination provides a mechanism to recombine genetic variants in a population which, among other evolutionary forces, may facilitate adaptation. Across plant species, pollen morphological diversity is broadly linked to different pollination systems. However, the extent of within-species diversity...
Plant invasions are biogeographical phenomena that may involve shifts in belowground plant–fungal interactions, such as the release from fungal pathogens or more beneficial interactions with mutualists in nonnative ranges. However, native and nonnative ranges are not uniform but environmentally heterogeneous, and plant–fungal interactions are strongly shaped by spatio-environmental context....
In Arabidopsis thaliana, the functions of only about 30% of genes have been experimentally characterized, partly because many gene functions are difficult to discern under laboratory conditions and might only be relevant under natural environments. Here, we conducted a comprehensive ecological study of Arabidopsis thaliana across natural habitats, integrating detailed phenotypic assessments...
Insects are home to a vast diversity of microbial communities, among which bacterial symbionts play a crucial role in host physiology, ecology, and evolution. They profoundly influence insect nutrition, immunity, and reproduction. Over millions of years of host association, many symbionts have undergone extensive genome reduction. This process - marked by the loss of genes unnecessary in the...
Wounding occurs in all animals, including even tiny, often overlooked insects such as Drosophila melanogaster. Wounds can have diverse impacts on the animal’s fitness and ecology, such as the potential introduction of microbial symbionts which may act as pathogens, commensals or mutualists. Lab experiments demonstrated that the microbiome of Drosophila melanogaster influences their fitness...
Protists are key players in microbial food webs, yet their role in groundwater ecosystems remains understudied—partly due to limitations in quantifying their abundances using molecular methods. A major challenge lies in the highly variable number of 18S rRNA gene copies across taxa, which can lead to a drastic overestimation of the quantitative role of specific taxa in protistan...
Habitat loss and agricultural intensification are considered major drivers of insect biodiversity decline, yet their impacts on insect genetic diversity remain insufficiently understood. This study investigates how human land-use practices, particularly the role of extensively managed meadows, affect insect genetic diversity to inform conservation strategies in fragmented agricultural...
The culturally and economically significant Andean tree genus Polylepis—which forms the world’s highest-elevation treelines—has long eluded a well-supported phylogenetic reconstruction, possibly due to extensive gene flow, hybridization, and polyploidization. To address this, we investigate sympatric populations of P. neglecta (Bolivia) and P. incana (Ecuador) using genomic (ddRADseq)...
Microbes play a key role in plant health and development. They inhabit various plant tissues and are present throughout the plant’s life cycle. Over this journey through space and time, the microbial composition changes and adapts—this is also true when the plant encounters challenging conditions. Plants can recruit and modulate beneficial microbes; however, we still do not fully understand...
Plant litter decomposition plays a pivotal role in nutrient recycling within soils, especially in ecosystems like grasslands and forests, which together span nearly 70% of the Earth's terrestrial surface. Despite its importance, the variation in microbial genomic capabilities for decomposing litter across these ecosystems remains insufficiently characterized. Through the International Soil...
Mammals underwent a taxonomic and morphological adaptive radiation across the Cretaceous/Paleogene (K/Pg) boundary. Morphological adaptations to the jaw, relating to disparate feeding ecologies, have been shown to increase in disparity during the Cenozoic. Mammal body mass also increases across the K/Pg boundary and is intrinsically linked to many aspects of a mammal’s ecological niche,...
The ongoing biodiversity crisis necessitates rapid and comprehensive assessments of global species inventories which is hampered by the slow pace of species discovery and formal taxonomic description. Recent advances in machine learning hold much promise for fast-tracking species delimitation and integrative taxonomic approaches yet their applicability in taxonomically complex groups remains...
Fleshy fruits have evolved to attract seed-dispersing animals to ingest the seed and disperse it away from the mother tree. Fruit functional traits and trait matching with animal functional diversity is a major driver of plant-frugivore network structure and hence seed dispersal patterns. While traits such as fruit color or size have been thoroughly studied, fruit chemical diversity, and...
The research group of Biodiversity of the Atmosphere focuses on the study of bioaerosols and investigates the effect of abiotic factors, such as temperature, humidity, and wind speed, on their concentration, composition, and dispersion.
Bioaerosols, biological particles such as bacteria, pollen, viruses, fungal spores, and more, that are released from the biosphere into the...
