Position 3: Seed Adaptation to Warm Ambient Temperature

What are you going to do?

Molecular mechanisms underlying seed adaptation to warm temperature

You will work on a PhD project addressing the plant genetic and non-genetic mechanisms underlying the effect of maternal exposure to warm temperature on seed germination and seedling establishment using the premium oil crop oilseed rape (Brassica napus) and the related model species Arabidopsis thaliana. Warm ambient temperature experienced by maternal plants can influence the germination behavior of their offspring, but the molecular mechanisms responsible for this transgenerational seed response conditioning crop establishment remains largely unknown. A deeper knowledge of this process will facilitate the development of strategies that improve crop adaptation to the current scenario of global warming that is threatening agricultural production.

Your aim will be to investigate global epigenetic changes triggered in the seeds following the exposure of mother plants to warm temperature at different stages of development. Warm temperature-induced modifications in epigenomic features will be correlated with transcriptomic alterations and changes in seed vigour. This will be a highly multidisciplinary project in which you will perform phenotypic analyses of seed traits, transcriptomic profiling using Next Generation Sequencing approaches (RNA-seq), as well as epigenetic and epigenomic analysis by Chromatin Immunoprecipitation (ChIP) and ChIP coupled to sequencing (ChIP-seq) as well as accessibility techniques in oilseed rape and Arabidopsis. You will also get familiar with bioinformatic analysis of massive sequencing data.

You will be actively collaborating with partners in the University of Amsterdam, and will receive training on phenotyping of oilseed rape seeds at DSV (Germany) and on bioinformatic analysis of next generation sequencing data at the company Sequentia. Additional collaborations within the consortium will be possible.