CVSince 2019:
PhD student at the Department of Forest Genetics and Forest Tree Breeding, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, Germany2016-2018:M.Sc. In Crop Science, Justus Liebig University, Gießen, Germany2013-2016:B.Sc. Agrobiology, University Hohenheim, Hohenheim, GermanyPhD
Project:
Investigations about the origin and adaption to drought stress of Quercus species using genetic data. Oaks of different sections, are widespread over North America, Europe and Asia and harvested woodmeets good quality standards. Therefore, oaks represent one of the most important tree communities ofthe northern hemisphere. In Germany, two different oaks species – pedunculated oak (Quercus robur)and sessile oak (Quercus petraea) - from the section Quercus are native. With the beginning of Europeansettlement in North America, new plant species were introduced to Europe, and the northern red oak(Quercus rubra, section Lobatae) became the most important foreign deciduous tree species in Germany,considering the large forest area.Oaks show generally high levels of genetic variation, which results in a great ability to adopt to various orchanging environmental conditions. Therefore, especially the foreign red oak and the native sessile oakare promising candidates in the face of expected climate change in the future, as they exhibit relativelyhigh tolerance to drought stress. My current project aims to establish genetic data for both species toinfer the origin of German red oak stands, and the adaptive potential to drought stress of sessile oaks.Chloroplast simple sequence repeat (cpSSR), and chloroplast cleaved amplified polymorphic sequences(cpCAPS) are used to create a database, able to reveal relationships between different red oakpopulations from Germany and the native range. Furthermore, expressed sequence tag (EST), andnuclear SSR markers are used to characterized genetic variation in native and introduced stands. Singlenucleotide polymorphisms (SNPs) are investigated in different populations of sessile oak. Those geneticreference databases will be tested for correlations between distinct markers and phenotypicaldifferences in drought stressed trees or trees of different altitude, and precipitation levels. Finally,association analyses between SNPs and phenotypes/environmental variables will enable us to narrowdown the origin of German northern red oak stands, and provide a possibility to test single trees for theirpredicted drought stress tolerance using genetic markers.