M. Sc. Judit Valeria Mendoza Servin

My PhD project is part of the Research Unit "Ecology and Evolution of Intraspecific Chemodiversity of Plants" funded by DFG. My main aim is to gain knowledge of the ecological relevance of intraspecific chemodiversity among aboveground and belowground organs of Solanum dulcamara. I focus on understanding what is the evolutionary relevance of the broad chemodiversity in natural populations of this plant, especially in roots, as a response to the permanent biotic interactions with fungi, nematodes, and herbivores. Additionally, I am interested in combining metabolomics with gene expression analysis in order to reveal the molecular mechanisms that regulate the stress response.

To address these, I perform greenhouse experiments, LC-qToF-MS analysis, and molecular approaches.