Over the past decade, we have acquired growing awareness of the effects of microplastic contamination in water bodies, and only recently in soil. With a series of controlled greenhouse experiments with phytometers, we investigate the combined effects of drought and plastic fragments in different sizes and concentrations on soil water content and plant fitness across different soil types.
Concurrently, we try to disentangle the effects of shape of microplastic fragments from their composition (microplastic or natural non-plastic material). We focus mainly on microplastic fragments produced by mulching films used in agriculture and fibers from textile materials, |
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Individual plants can detect the presence and the identity of their neighbours. Several studies show that chemical cues are involved in kin recognition. However, we still have a limited understanding of a) the mechanisms involved in kin recognition, b) how genetic relatedness affects the outcome of intraspecific interactions. We address these questions by combining greenhouse experiments with ecological models.
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Encroaching species, although native to an ecosystem, have been expanding into new habitats with potential negative effects to preexisting vegetation. We investigated Juniperus virginiana (eastern red cedar), one of the most vigorous encroaching tree species in Northeast America.
In a multi-site field experiment, we tested the effects of grazing, interspecific competition and intraspecific interactions on the growth of J. virginiana seedlings. In addition, we tested by means of snow depth manipulations, how snow cover and snow melting can affect the growth and survival of this range expanding species. Read more: |
Increasing evidence shows the importance of biotic interactions in drawing more precise and reliable predictions of plant response to climate change.
This is of particular urgency for regions such as the Eastern Mediterranean that is classified as a hot-spot of biodiversity and is predicted to face increasing drought and unpredictability of rainfall patterns. By combining reciprocal seed-sowing and soil transplant experiments with neighbor manipulations along steep rainfall gradients, we can disentangle the role of plant-plant and plant-soil biota interactions for plant response to climate change. This approach is a powerful tool to study the response of single species and entire communities to novel climates. |
Predictions on the variation of defenses against herbivory along rainfall gradients are equivocal. Current theories suggest either an increase of chemical defenses under more favorable conditions (often associated with larger herbivore pressure), or quite the opposite, that under stressful conditions plants may be more vulnerable to herbivore damage and invest more in constitutive defenses. Following up from a previous study (Metz et al, 2014), we tested in a greenhouse experiment how production of glucosinolates is influenced by short- and long-term water regime in a Brassicacea native to the Eastern Mediterranean region.
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