Due to global climate change the different plant photosynthesis types C3, C4 and CAM will be of utmost importance in balancing net primary as well as global food production with all its subsequent consequences on the human society.

Typical C3 crop plants are wheat, rice and potato, C4 are maize and millet, and CAM are typical tropical crop plants such as ananas. For all of them genome sequences are available and enable a system-level analysis of the different types of photosynthesis.

The only so far known tree showing CAM-type photosynthesis is restricted to Clusia species. Knowledge here is very limited, especially the system-level understanding of this highly plastic plant able to switch from C3 to CAM. The student will work on different Clusia species in the field (research field station La Gamba) and with a large collection of different ecotypes in the lab.

For more information, please, contact wolfram.weckwerth@univie.ac.at