Plant-plant interactions along biotic and abiotic gradients
2 ICG-3, FZ Jülich
3 Biogeographie, Uni Bayreuth
P 2.3 in Biodiversity and Nature Protection
The aim of my PhD-project “Positive and negative dynamics of plant-plant interactions and their functional role in regulating ecosystem processes” is to highlight interaction and exchange processes between different grassland plant species in artificial or natural communities with an emphasis on legume-neighbour interactions. We investigate if these processes change along gradients of abiotic (nitrogen availability in the substrate, weather disturbances) and biotic factors (species and functional diversity) and how these changes affect the ecosystem properties like productivity, stability or resource use and accumulation. The projects are located on different scales (from greenhouse to field) with the aim to collect data and transfer results from microcosms to the “real world”. We approach the kind of plant-plant communication with diverse methods: classical methods like cover estimation, biomass determination and element analysis as well as nitrogen isotope composition via the d15N natural abundance method and 15N-enriched-tracer studies and elaborated non-invasive methods like LAI (leaf area index) and chlorophyll a red fluorescence measurements.