Marie-Louise Schärer successfully defended her PhD thesis
Marie-Louise successfully defended her thesis last Thursday in a packed auditorium in the botany building at the University of Basel. In her thesis Marie-Louise asked why grasslands grow better after a drought compared to non-drought stressed controls. With several field and greenhouse experiments she was able to shown that increased post-drought nitrogen availability causes this interesting phenomenon. She was further able to show that the increased plant available nitrogen most likely comes from increased post-drought microbial activity that is stimulated by low molecular weight organic compounds that were exudated by plant roots during drought. The PPE team congratulates Marie-Louise to this fascinating work.