Thesis supervisor: Viktor Oláh
Location of studies (in Hungarian): DE Life Sciences Building Abbreviation of location of studies: ÉTK
Description of the research topic:
Duckweeds (Lemnaceae family) are the known smallest and fastest-growing angiosperms with several cosmopolite species. As a result of their adaption to aquatic habitats, they have undergone an evolutionary reduction, that led to a simplified body plan. Different duckweed genera and species reached various levels of simplification, with diverging ecophysiological strategies and properties within the family. In addition to those interspecific differences, their worldwide distribution, short life cycle and predominantly vegetative reproduction also resulted in the evolution of various intraspecific ecotypes with very distinct traits.
Because of their unique properties, duckweeds are widely used in research and bioremediation, and are also candidate crops in circular economic approaches. However, trade-off between growth and stress tolerance and its effects on the produced biomass are less known and can depend strongly on the ambient conditions, and on the duckweed species or even intraspecific ecotype. Thus, understanding the links between the biomass producing potential and environmental responses of duckweeds is prospectedly of high future economic significance.
The proposed PhD project aims at assessment of different duckweed ecotypes of cosmopolite species under laboratory and field conditions. The planned work covers comparison of the inter- and intraspecific variability in growth traits, stress responses and tolerance mechanisms, by means of growth analyses, imaging-based phenotyping methods, physiological and biochemical analyses.