Projects

Information on research projects run by the different lab members can be temporarily found here, just click on a member.

Information for Master students is summarized below the image. A current overview of currently available master student projects can be found here. Contact Ronald Pierik (email) for more information.

Plant Ecophysiology is the fascinating research area that studies the complex interactions between plants and their environment. The sessile lifestyle of plants forces them to live with an enormous range of different abiotic and biotic conditions, which can vary dramatically from minute to minute.
The Plant Ecophysiology research group at Utrecht University studies the physiological and molecular mechanisms that enable plants to grow, compete and survive in stressful environments. More particular we focus on molecular mechanisms that enable plants to cope with flooded or competitive environments. Both stress conditions induce changes in plant growth, helping plants to either overgrow high water levels or to outcompete neighbours in dense vegetations.
Master projects are available throughout the year to study the mechanisms that underpin these adaptive plant responses to their environment. Approaches and techniques that can be used include competition experiments, plant growth studies, confocal microscopy, gene expression analyses, cell growth mechanisms, hormone manipulations, and a variety of standard molecular techniques. Information for Master students is summarized below the image. 
A current overview of currently available master student projects can be found here. Contact Ronald Pierik (email) for more information.