Pieter Clauw
Project (Locally adaptive temperature response of vegetative growth in arabidopsis thaliana)
Plants use a wide variety of life-history strategies in adaptation to their local environment.
Differences in life-history are linked to climate parameters, but it is not always clear how trade-offs are shaping this variation.We study vegetative growth, a key component of life history, and explore potential trade-offs. We do this specifically in cold, non-freezing temperatures, similar to temperatures these plants naturally encounter in fall at northern latitudes.
Combining automated phenotyping, metabolome and transcriptome analyses of Arabidopsis thaliana natural lines indicates a trade-off between growth and survival.
We hypothesize that populations that face colder winter temperatures reduce their growth when it gets colder and relocate the saved resources towards preparing for freezing stress.