Are you interested to find out how plants deal with stress? Are you fascinated by the way young seedlings can sense and respond to their light environment? Do you wish to unravel the physiological and molecular pathways underlying developmental adaptations? And do you like working in a multicultural, interdisciplinary and exciting scientific environment?
We are searching for an enthusiastic and motivated PhD candidate to work on an interdisciplinary project to study the impact of salt stress on seedling establishment and development in darkness and light. You will combine plant physiology with cell biology, molecular biology and bioinformatics to unravel the response of young plants to light and salt stress using different approaches.
Project description
Light is life. Plants use solar energy to synthesize sugars from CO2 and this provides the basis for almost all life on Earth. This photosynthesis reaction takes place in specialized, green cell organelles: the chloroplasts. Directly after germination, young seedlings develop chloroplasts from proplastids present in the embryo. This transition requires light and is part of a life-changing developmental process known as
photomorphogenesis: cotyledons (embryonic leaves) separate, turn green and start photosynthesizing. When buried under the soil, the seedling's first mission is to outgrow the darkness towards the light. This is facilitated by strong elongation of the hypocotyl (embryonic stem) and the formation of a hook in the most apical part of the hypocotyl to protect the meristem, while the cotyledons, chloroplasts and the root remain undeveloped. This developmental program is called
skotomorphogenesis.
Plants face various environmental stresses throughout their life.
Soil salinization causes severe problems for agriculture, and global yield losses due to salinization are estimated at $27.3 billion each year. Salt (NaCl) causes osmotic stress as well as Na+ ion toxicity and affects plant growth at various levels. Despite the great research interest in physiological consequences of salt stress, very little is known about the impact of salinity on seedling photomorphogenesis and skotomorphogenesis. This project aims to identify and unravel this impact.
The PhD candidate will be supervised by dr. Charlotte Gommers (
https://www.wur.nl/en/Persons/Charlotte-dr.-CMM-Charlotte-Gommers.htm). You will become a member of the 'chloroplast retrograde signaling' team, which is embedded in the Laboratory of Plant Physiology. We are specifically interested in the role of chloroplasts in environmental (stress) signaling, and the role these signals play in plant development and stress survival. This project also involves close collaboration with our colleagues working on salt signaling (group leader: Prof. Christa Testerink:
https://www.wur.nl/en/Persons/Christa-prof.dr.-CS-Christa-Testerink.htm).