Mycorrhizas for sustainable agriculture and forestry

Roughly a third of the earth’s land is degraded. Human activities including industry and overcultivation resulted in marginal soils. These soils are unbalanced in nutrients and often polluted with heavy metals. Additionally, extreme weather conditions resulted in unfertile, dry and salinized soils. Low quality of soils negatively affect plant growth and impact on food, feed and fuel quality. About 90% of plant species associates in mutual beneficial interactions with some kind of mycorrhizal fungi. These fungi provide their plant host with limited nutrients and water in exchange for sugars and/or lipids. Also, they provide benefits such as protection from biotic and abiotic stress. Effectivity by which mycorrhizal fungi balance nutrient supply and protect their host from environmental stress is different among fungal species and isolates. Molecular genetic mechanisms underlying functional diversity of mycorrhizal fungi are not yet understood. Post-doctoral research in our group could explore functional diversity and potential of mycorrhizal fungi to protect crops (rice, soybean, ...) from heavy metal pollution or micronutrient deficiency along with underlying physiological and molecular mechanisms. Other possibilities include the study of adaptive evolution towards human-induced environmental change in mycorrhizal fungi and their impact on tree survival in order to develop applications in forestry. All research includes methods in environmental, evolutionary and functional genomics.

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