Onderwerp scriptie
Soil microbiota: a key player for healthy plants
Soil is the most diverse and complex habitat that consists of millions of fungi, billions of bacteria together with protists and nematodes. A single gram of soil harbors between 4·103 to 5·104 species!
I Investigate how plants steer soil microbial diversity, and how microbial communities affect plant health and plant resilience to plant pathogens. The ultimate goal is to pinpoint plant species stimulating plant-beneficial and pathogen-suppressive microbiotas for future use in sustainable plant production. Two different approaches are used, an ecological one, based on microbial isolations and plant bioassays, and a molecular one, where I use DNA sequencing data to study plant induced shifts in microbiota.
Techniques that will be used:
•Isolation of microorganisms
•Plant-microbes bioassays
•DNA and RNA extraction
•Sequencing-based microbiota analysis
- PCR – qPCR