MMM (Maarten) Postuma MSc

Under global environmental change, natural populations of plants are often at risk of going extinct. In order to survive adaptation to these novel conditions is extremely important and there are major differences in how well different plants within species can cope with these changes. There are multiple process involved in these adaptation such as evolution and phenotpyic plasticity. However, the most part these processes, and molecular mechanisms underlying these processes are relatively little studied wild species. In my PhD I aim to further unravel this by using a combination of modelling and molecular techniques.

To do this I study Arabidopsis lyrata, in Norway. Plants from these populations have been found to exhibit different levels of adaptability, but are predicted to be affected by climate change. I will expand on previous studies by seeing if predictions about population responses have come true. Next to this Iwill conduct greenhouse experiments in order to determine the level adaptability in these populations, and try to identify genetic and epigenetic marks that predict differences in adaptability.