Universities | Swiss Plant Science Web

Professors and Group Leaders (sorted by universities)

• EPFL

Heat and drought impact on trees and forest ecosystems

Physiological Plant Ecology

• ETH Zurich

Prof. Dr. Jake Alexander	Experimental plant ecology	Plant Ecology
PD Dr. Reinhard Berndt	Systematic mycology	Systematic Mycology
Prof. Dr. Kirsten Bomblies	Adaptive evolution in response to genome duplication and climate	Plant Evolutionary Genetics
Prof. Dr. Nina Buchmann	Biogeochemistry and biodiversity of agro- and forest ecosystems	Ecosystem Functioning and Global Change
Prof. Dr. Consuelo De Moraes	Biocommunication & ecology	Biocommunication & Ecology
Prof. Dr. Emmanuel Frossard	Improve nutrient-use efficiency in agro-ecosystems	Plant Nutrition
Dr. Claude Garcia	Human-forest interface in subtropical and tropical regions – Forest management and development group (ForDev)	Biodiversity Conservation – Natural Resources Management
Prof. Dr. Jaboury Ghazoul	Plant-animal interactions and ecosystem function	Ecology of Plant Reproduction
Prof. em. Dr. Wilhelm Gruissem	Plant genetic networks – from databases to computational modeling	Functional Genomics
Dr. Felix Gugerli	Landscape Genomics of Forest Trees and Alpine Plants	Ecological Genetics
Prof. Dr. Christoph Küffer	Global change ecology	Global Change Ecology
Prof. Dr. Monika Maurhofer	Plant pathology	Plant Pathology
Prof. Dr. Bruce McDonald	Population genetics and evolutionary biology of plant pathogenic fungi	Plant Pathology
Dr. Astrid Oberson	Phosphorus and nitrogen (re-)cycling in agro-ecosystems	Plant Nutrition
Prof. Dr. Loïc Pellissier	Understanding the dynamic of biological landscapes	Spatial Ecology
PD Dr. Diana Santelia	The role of carbon metabolism in drought stress tolerance	Plant Molecular Physiology and Biochemistry
Prof. Dr. Johan Six	Elucidating and promoting sustainable agriculture across the world	Sustainable Agroecosystems
Dr. Thomas Städler	Evolutionary genetics and reproductive isolation in wild tomatoes	Plant Evolutionary Genetics
Prof. Dr. Bruno Studer	Forage crop genetics	Forage Crop Genetics
Dr. Federica Tamburini	Oxygen isotope in phosphate, a new approach to study the soil/plant system	Plant Nutrition
Dr. Elisabeth Truernit	Phloem development and function	Plant Development
Prof. Dr. Olivier Voinnet	RNA Biology	RNA Biology
Prof. Dr. Julia Vorholt	Phyllosphere microbiome	Microbiology
Prof. Dr. Achim Walter	Plant growth and phenotyping	Crop Science
Prof. Dr. Alex Widmer	Understanding the genetic basis of ecological and evolutionary processes	Plant Ecological Genetics
Prof. Dr. Samuel C. Zeeman	Plant primary metabolism - From basic research to crop productivity	Plant Biochemistry

• University of Basel

Name	Portfolio Name	Research Topic
Prof. em. Dr. Thomas Boller	Molecular aspects of symbiosis and pathogenesis in plants	Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
Dr. Jurriaan de Vos	Plant reproductive diversity across lineages and environments	Plant evolution and systematics
Dr. Pascale Flury	Plant-beneficial rhizobacteria	Plant-Microbe Interactions
PD Dr. Günter Hoch	Tree carbon relations	Tree ecophysiology
Prof. Dr. Ansgar Kahmen	Responses of plants and ecosystems to global environmental change	Physiological Plant Ecology
Prof. em. Dr. Christian Körner	Ecosystem function and biodiversity under global change	Plant Ecology
Prof. Dr. Sabine Rumpf	Alpine and arctic plant ecology	Plant Ecology
Prof. Dr. Klaus Schlaeppi	Root microbiome	Plant-Microbe Interactions
Prof. Dr. Yvonne Willi	Limits to the adaptive evolution process	Evolutionary Biology

• University of Bern

Name	Portfolio	Research Topic
Prof. Dr. Matthias Erb	Secondary metabolites in plant-herbivore interactions	Molecular and Chemical Plant-Herbivore Interactions
Prof. Dr. Markus Fischer	Plant ecology	Plant Ecology
Prof. Dr. Pauline Jullien	Methylome dynamics during Arabidopsis reproduction	Development and Epigenetic
Prof. Dr. Cris Kuhlemeier	Plant developmental biology	Plant Developmental Biology
Prof. Dr. Michael Raissig	Form, development, and function of grass stomata	Plant Developmental Genetics
Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Reis	Adaptation to warm ambient temperature via posttranscriptional regulation	RNA Biology
Prof. Dr. Doris Rentsch	Transport of organic nitrogen in plants and parasitic protozoa	Molecular Plant Physiology
Prof. Dr. Christelle Robert	Infochemicals that shape interactions between organisms	Chemical Ecology
Prof. Dr. Zerihun Tadele	Crop breeding and genomics	Plant Genetics and Development
Prof. Dr. Willy Tinner	Ecosystem and vegetation responses to climatic change, disturbance and land use	Paleoecology and Vegetation Dynamics

• University of Fribourg

Name	Portfolio	Research Topic
PD Dr. Markus Geisler	Functional interactomics of auxin transport	Molecular Plant Physiology – Hormone Transport
Dr. Ora Hazak	Signaling peptides in plant adaptation to abiotic stresses	Molecular Genetics and Plant Cell Biology
Prof. em. Dr. Heinz Müller-Schärer	Ecology and evolution in invasive plants	Plant Population Ecology
Prof. Dr. Christian Parisod	Plant ecological genomics	Plant Genome Evolution and Diversification
Prof. Dr. Stefanie Ranf	Sensing and adaptation of bacteria in plants	Plant-microbe Interactions
PD Dr. Didier Reinhardt	Regulation of growth, nutrition, and symbiosis in plants	Molecular Plant-Microbe interactions, Plant Nutrition
Prof. Dr. Laure Weisskopf	Volatile-mediated impact of bacteria on plants	Plant-microbe Interactions, Phytopathology, Microbiology

• University of Geneva

Name	Portfolio	Research Topic
Prof. Dr. Marie Barberon	Nutrition and development of plants	Developmental Physiology
Prof. Dr. Teresa Fitzpatrick	Vitamin metabolism and its relations to environmental stress	Plant Biochemistry and Physiology
Prof. Dr. Michael Hothorn	Structural plant biology	Structural Biology & Cell Biology & Genetics
Prof. Dr. Luis Lopez-Molina	Molecular genetic control of seed germination in Arabidopsis thaliana	Plant Developmental Genetics, Hormone Signaling
Dr. Yamama Naciri	Understanding plant speciation and diversification patterns	Biodiversity and Evolution
Prof. Dr. Michelle Price	Plant Systematics and Biodiversity	Systematics and evolution of plants and fungi
Prof. Dr. Roman Ulm	UV-B perception and signalling in plants	Plant Molecular Biology

• University of Lausanne

Name	Portfolio Name	Research Topic
Prof. Dr. Christian Fankhauser	Molecular mechanisms of light-regulated growth and development in plants	Plant Photoreceptor-Mediated Signal Transduction
Prof. Dr. Edward Farmer	Plant molecular biology	Plant Molecular Biology
Prof. Dr. Niko Geldner	Developmental cell biology of plants	Developmental Cell Biology of Plants
Prof. em. Dr. Pierre Goloubinoff	Perception of stress and the mechanisms of molecular chaperones	Heat-Shock Biology and the Mechanisms of Chaperone Actions
Prof. Dr. Antoine Guisan	Spatial modelling of plants species distribution	Spatial Ecology
Prof. Dr. Christian Hardtke	The molecular basis of plant growth & development	Molecular Genetics & Natural Genetic Variation
Dr. Christiane Nawrath	Structure – function analysis of cutin and the cuticle in Arabidopsis	Biochemistry
Prof. Dr. John Pannell	Ecology and evolution of plant sexual systems	Ecology and Evolution of Plant Sexual Systems
Prof. Dr. Yves Poirier	Plant metabolic pathways and phosphate homeostasis	Plant Molecular Biology-Metabolic Pathways
Prof. Dr. Philippe Reymond	Plant defenses against insects	Molecular Studies of Plant-Insect Interactions
Prof. Dr. Ian R. Sanders	Genetics and evolution of the mycorrhizal symbiosis	Molecular Genetics and Evolution
Prof. Dr. Julia Santiago Cuellar	Plant signaling mechanisms	Cell Wall Signaling and Remodeling
Prof. Dr. Sebastian Soyk	Genetic control of plant architecture	Plant Developmental Genetics

• University of Neuchâtel

Name	Portfolio Name	Research Topic
Prof. Dr. Daniel Croll	Evolutionary genomics of plant-pathogen interactions	Evolutionary Genetics
Prof. Dr. Jason Grant	Plant systematics and taxonomy	Plant Systematics and Taxonomy
Prof. Dr. Felix Kessler	Discovering how chloroplasts are made	Chloroplasts and Photosynthesis
Dr. Fiamma P Longoni	Dynamics of the light harvesting complex	Photosynthetic acclimation
Prof. Dr. Kay Lucek	Holocentric chromosomes and their impact on speciation	Biodiversity Genomics
Dr. Ricardo Machado	Bioluminescence as a regulator of multitrophic interactions belowground	Molecular and Chemical Ecology
Prof. Dr. Sergio Rasmann	Evolutionary ecology of above-belowground plant-animal interaction	Mechanistic Community Ecology, Soil Ecology
Prof. Dr. Ted Turlings	Chemical signals involved in plant-insect interactions	Chemical Ecology
Prof. Dr. Joop Vermeer	Understanding spatial accommodating responses during plant development	Plant Cell and Molecular Biology
Prof. Dr. Clara Zemp	Protecting biodiversity in a changing world	Conservation Biology

• University of Zurich

Name	Portfolio Name	Research Topic
Dr. Simon Aeschbacher	Plant adaptation and speciation in the face of gene flow	Population Genomics
Dr. Aurélien Bailly	Volatile organic compounds-mediated plant-microbe communication	Molecular Plant-Microbe Interactions
PD Dr. Célia Baroux	Chromatin and transcriptome dynamics during sexual plant reproduction	Molecular Genetics of Plant Development
Prof. Dr. Jordi Bascompte	Networks of species interactions and biodiversity	Community Ecology
Prof. Dr. Sylvain Bischof	Epigenetic control of gene expression and genome stability	Epigenetics and Chromatin Biology
Prof. Dr. Rodrigo Camara-Leret	Biocultural conservation	Ethnobotany
Prof. Dr. Elena Conti	An integrative phylogenetic approach to elucidate the evolution of plant diversity	Plant Evolution and Systematics
Prof. Dr. Alexander Damm	Remote sensing of plant-water relations	Remote Sensing
Prof. Dr. Leo Eberl	Interactions of bacteria with plants	Microbiology
Dr. Stefan Grob	3D-omics	Epigenetics
Prof. Dr. Ueli Grossniklaus	Genetic and epigenetic control of plant reproduction	Plant Developmental Genetics
Prof. Dr. Marcus Hall	Plants and society	Environmental History
Prof. Dr. Beat Keller	The cereal genomes: hidden treasures for evolutionary genomics and agronomy	Plant Molecular Biology
PD Dr. Michael Kessler	Tropical plant biodiversity and biogeography	Tropical Pant Biodiversity and Biogeography
Prof. Dr. Pascal Niklaus	Consequences of environmental change on plant communities and plant-soil interactions	Global Change and Soil Ecology
PD Dr. Reto Nyffeler	Adaptation and diversification of succulent plants	Comparative Evolutionary Biology and Systematics
Prof. Dr. Christoph Ringli	Regulatory factors controlling cell wall formation	Molecular Genetics of Plant Development
Prof. Dr. Anne Roulin	Genetic basis of local adaptation	Molecular Ecology
Prof. Dr. Florian P. Schiestl	Chemical and evolutionary ecology of plant - insect interactions	Systematic Botany
Prof. Dr. Joëlle Schläpfer	Root-microbe interactions	Molecular Plant Microbe Interactions
Prof. em. Dr. Bernhard Schmid	Organization of plant populations and communities	Experimental Plant Ecology
Prof. Dr. Kentaro Shimizu	How genomic changes promote adaptation and speciation in Arabidopsis relatives and in tropical trees	Evolutionary Functional Genomics / Systems Biology
Dr. Rie Shimizu-Inatsugi	Polyploidization and stress response in plants	Evolutionary Genomics
Prof. Dr. Sara Simonini	Canonical and non-canonical epigenetic regulation of embryogenesis	Plant Molecular and Developmental Biology
PD Dr. Peter Szövényi	Evolutionary genomics and ecology of macro- and microevolutionary transitions	Evolutionary Genomics
Prof. Dr. Marcel van der Heijden	Symbiosis and soil biodiversity as a driver of plant growth and ecosystem functioning	Plant Soil Interactions
PD Dr. Caroline Weckerle	Ethnobotany	Ethnobotany
Prof. Dr. Thomas Wicker	Genomics and bioinformatics in plants and fungi	Genomics
Prof. Dr. Cyril Zipfel	Receptor kinase-mediated plant sensing	Plant Signaling
Prof. Dr. Tobias Züst	Cost and benefit of phytochemical diversity in coevolved systems	Chemical Ecology of Plant-herbivore Interactions

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