Plant Ecophysiology Team

For my thesis, I study the acclimation strategies to low and high temperature in high light of two alpine plants. Soldanella alpina and Geum montanum are two snowbed plants which keep their leaves green during two vegetation periods.

During snowmelt the leaves absorb high light intensity, first at cold temperature then at high temperature. The two contrasting conditions are known to induce oxidative stress and destructions in most plant species. These leaves from the previous year are compared to new leaves formed under favourable environmental conditions in the absence of stress during the vegetation period in order to better understand the acclimation mechanisms that could explain their survival.

The investigation is concentrated on the excess electron flux and the PTOX protein, which is potentially able to consume those excess electrons in the chloroplast electron transport chain.

Tutoring