FOR3000/University Marburg

I have a broad interest in the ecology and evolution of plants and insects, with a focus on the phytochemicals that contribute to shaping the interactions between plants and other organisms. I have a PhD from Lund University, Sweden, where I studied how mating systems, environmental effects and plant-pollinator interactions shape intraspecific variation in floral scent in the perennial herb Arabis alpina.

In my postdoc project, my overall goal is to develop a general framework for analysing chemoecological data. These type of datasets, for example the scent of flowers or the defensive compounds in leaves, are multivariate, which presents challenges when it comes to analysing and interpreting data. I aim to compare and develop appropriate measures of phytochemical diversity, further aggregate data on the biosynthesis of phytochemicals, analyse chemodiversity at different hierarchical levels, and investigate the effect of phytochemical variation on plant-insect interactions. In doing so, I hope to be able to answer questions on the ecological and evolutionary significance of plant chemodiversity for interactions with pollinators, herbivores and other organisms.