Project

Climate change is particularly rapid at high elevation, where a rise in temperature of nearly 2K has been observed during the last century. Besides more frequent droughts, alpine ecosystems have also experienced a shift in snowmelt timing during the past decades, considerably extending the short growing season of alpine plants. As the biggest biomass fraction of alpine plants lays below-ground, changes in seasonality may impact root phenology, growth and turnover as well as processes occurring in the rhizosphere. In my PhD project, I will connect below- and above-ground plant responses to manipulated snowmelt timing and artificially induced drought.

Awards

2019 Best poster award at Plant Science Symposium Zürich. Title: "Carbon limitation: facts or fiction. A case about alpine plants"
2021 Awarded distinction in SNSF Scientific Image Competition in the category "object of study". Title: "Alpine root diversity"

Education

2019–ongoing PhD student at the Physiological Plant Ecology Group, University of Basel
2017–2019 Internship data visualization / software development
2017–2018 CAS in Applied Statistics, ETH Zürich
2016–2017 Civil service at the SLF (WSL-Institute for Snow and Avalanche Research)
2015–2017 MSc in Ecology, "Shading an alpine sedge mat induces species specific responses", University of Basel
2010–2015 BSc in Biology, Major in Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Basel

Publications

Möhl, P., Hiltbrunner, E. & Körner, C. (2020) Halving sunlight reveals no carbon limitation of aboveground biomass production in alpine grassland. Global Change Biol 26, 1857–1872.

Möhl P., Mörsdorf M. A., Dawes M. A., Hagedorn F., Bebi P., Viglietti D.,  Freppaz M., Wipf S, Körner C, Frank T. M., Rixen, C. (2018). Twelve years of low nutrient input stimulates growth of trees and dwarf shrubs in the treeline ecotone. Journal of Ecology, 1–13. doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13073