Ebe Merilo, Associate Professor of Plant Biology

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Research:

The scientific areas of Model and Crop Plant Ecophysiology group (led by associate professor Ebe Merilo) include plant physiology, ecophysiology, molecular biology and agricultural studies. Since defending her PhD thesis, EM has conducted or been involved in several projects, which served to strengthen her expertise in ecophysiology of plants ranging from Arabidopsis to trees and agricultural plants, and in translational studies bridging the gap between fundamental and applied science.

Climate change-associated rise in atmospheric dryness results in increased plant water loss and reduced stomatal conductance, photosynthesis, biomass and yield. One aim of Model and Crop Plant Ecophysiology group is to identify the molecular stomatal signalling pathway in response to dry air. We have contributed in the unravelling of the dry air-induced rapid stomatal signalling pathway in Arabidopsis: protein kinase OST1 and its activating raf-like kinases are involved in stomatal dry air response. Now we aim to move from Arabidopsis model to different crop plants to understand the role of Arabidopsis stomatal signalling components in agricultural plants. This will elucidate the breeding potential of those genes.

We work in collaboration with two other plant biology groups at the Institute of Technology, UT: Plant Signal Research group (led by professor Hannes Kollist) and Molecular Plant Physiology Lab (led by Dr. Hanna Hõrak). We also have a cooperation agreement with the Centre of Estonian Rural Research and Knowledge: all our field experiments with agricultural crops are done there.