Dorota Kawa

Climate change has a detrimental impact on agriculture worldwide. The increasing severity and frequency of extreme weather events, like drought, flooding, or heatwaves; occurring concomitantly or alternating; pose significant challenges for food production. Climate-proof plants, resilient to a broader range of stresses can ensure future food security.

My group studies how crop roots function in complex environments, facing abiotic and biotic stresses and, at the same time, engaging with beneficial interactions with soil-born microbes. We aim to understand the optimal root system and cellular architecture needed to balance the protection from multiple stresses and maintaining beneficial interactions.

We use high-throughput phenotyping, -omics and modeling approaches, histology, microscopy, physiology, and genetics to link root development in a dynamic environment to a whole plant performance in the face of changing climate.