Welcome ...
...to the Plant Ecology group website, led by Prof. Dr. Katja Tielbörger! Here you can find information to our main research topics, our teaching, our staff, job announcements and news. Ms Tielbörger is also head of the Botanical Garden.
If you want to get us to know us better, join one of our regular group seminars which we host together with the Plant Evolutionary Ecology group! We are presenting our work in these seminars and provide you with an insight into the highly active and diverse range of research topics of the plant ecology department.
Enjoy exploring our website and feel free to contact anyone if you are interested in finding out more about any particular topics, or if you want to pay us a visit. Subscribe to our Email newsletter.
New Publications
07.06.2021 ► S. L. Francesco de Bello, Lauren M. Hallett, Enrique Valencia,, C. R. Eric Garnier, Luisa Conti, Thomas Galland, Marta Goberna,, A. M.-N. Maria Májeková, Juli G. Pausas, Miguel Verdú, Anna E-Vojtkó, and L. G. a. J. Lepš. Functional trait effects on ecosystem stability: assembling the jigsaw puzzle. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 2021. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tree.2021.05.001
27.04.2021 ► Májeková, M., Hájek, T., Albert, A. J., de Bello, F., Doležal, J., Götzenberger, L., Janeček, Š., Lepš, J., Liancourt, P., Mudrák, O. (2021). Weak coordination between leaf drought tolerance and proxy traits in herbaceous plants. Functional Ecology, 00(0), 000-000 https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2435.13792
26.03.2021 ► Kurze, S., Engelbrecht B.M.J., Bilton, M.C., Tielbörger, K. and Álvarez-Cansino, L. (2021). Rethinking the Plant Economics Spectrum for Annuals: A Multi-Species Study. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpls.2021.640862
23.03.2021 ► Tomiolo, S., Thomas, C., Jespersen, M.K., Damgaard, C.F. and Ehlers, B.K. (2021). Intraspecific interactions in the annual legume Medicago minima are shaped by both genetic variation for competitive ability and reduced competition among kin, 53 (49-61). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.baae.2021.03.003
11.01.2021 ► Canessa, R., Brink, L. v. d., Saldaña, A., Rios, R. S., Hättenschwiler, S., Mueller, C. W., Prater, I., Tielbörger, K., & Bader, M. Y. (2021). Relative effects of climate and litter traits on decomposition change with time, climate and trait variability. Journal of Ecology, 109(1), 447-458. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2745.13516
07.01.2021 ► Oikos: Ant foraging strategies vary along a natural resource gradient. Segev U., Tielbörger K., Lubin Y. and Kigel J. 2020. https://doi.org/10.1111/oik.07688
New Global Centre for climate and environment in the Jordan River region
15.04.2021
New Global Climate Centre coordinated at the Tielbörger Group! Our group convinced the DAAD to fund a regional climate and resource management center in Jordan and neighbouring countries. The SAGE-Center (Sustainable Adaptation to Global Change in the Middle East) will be devoted to transboundary sustainability research and capacity building in the Jordan River region and will be running for almost five years, with an option for another extension by five years. This centre builds on decades of transdisciplinary and transboundary research in the focal region and on many years of confidence-building among scientists and stakeholders.
The EU's Common Agriculture Policy and Sustainable Farming: A statement by scientists
08.12.2020
Katja has co-authored an urgency statement by scientists to the EU commission in response to the draft of the next Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which contradicts all serious efforts for a more sustainable agriculture. The statement has been published here: https://zenodo.org/record/4311314 Please share!
A Dry Run: Drought Impact on Plant Ecosystems
09.11.2020
In the new issue of attempto! Katja Tielbörger and Maximiliane Herberich describe by means of rainout shelter experiments on the Swabian Alb how future drought periods will affect plant ecosystems. Special edition climate change, attempto! 53|2020
New publication in Ecology Letters!
27.08.2020
Katja just published a new study showing that plants may rapidly adapt to climate change, albeit not in all relevant traits. So the message is not entirely optimistic. https://doi.org/10.1111/ele.13596
Congratulations!
21.05.2020
Ruichang's and Katja's new study now published in Nature Communications! They present a model and an experiment which manage to combine competition and facilitation theory in a common framework. Read here, when and why the stress gradient hypothesis applies and why a dense neighbourhood is not always negative for plant performance: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-16286-6
Planet Wissen
18.02.2020
Katja Tielbörger is talking on Planet Wissen about the fascinating research on smart plants: plants warn each other of enemies, ally themselves with helpful bacteria and fungi, use insects and other animals for reproduction and use chemical weapons for defence. Plants can make decisions and it seems that they can even learn.