Dr. Vera Hesen

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Current Projects

I am a plant biologist connecting molecular biology to ecology and evolution and fascinated by the interaction between plants and their environment. Currently I am working as post-doc in the Collaborative Research Center "Phenotypic plasticity in plants: Mechanisms, constraints and evolution". Under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Anja Linstädter I am part of project B3 "Genomic and functional underpinning of reaction norms of the leaf-economic spectrum across environmental gradients". Here, we employ a diversity panel of different Arabidopsis thaliana accessions and investigate how the individual LES traits and resulting composite trait modified in response to nitrogen availability.

In addition, I am also involved in research part of Collaborative Research Center (TRR) 341 “Plant Ecological Genetics”. Here I coordinate and carry out field work in Potsdam, collecting and researching natural populations of A. thaliana and other closely related Brassicaceae species in urban environments. We use the collected plant material to carry out follow-up experiments. Part of this field work is also used during the Summer Semester Module “Ecology and diversity of terrestrial plants”.

Research Interests

• Evolution, local adaptation and phenotypic plasticity in plants
• Developmental biology and molecular biology in plants
• Plant functional strategies
• Intraspecific genetic and phenotypic variation
• Soil ecology, both in abiotic and biotic context
• Traitbased analysis with a special interest in root architecture and the leaf economic spectrum (LES)

Education

Since November 2024 Post-Doc in CRC1644 "Phenotypic Plasticity in Plants", Biodiversity Research / Systematic Botany, University of Potsdam (Germany)

March and April 2024 Teaching assistant at the department of Molecular Biology, Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands)

June 2018 – January 2024 PhD Student at Cell and Developmental Biology, Wageningen University & Research, and at Terrestrial Ecology, NIOO-KNAW (The Netherlands)

February to May 2018 Teaching assistant at the department of Molecular Biology, Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands)

2014 – 2017 MSc Biology, major "Gene Regulation and Molecular Development", Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands) Graduated with ‘cum laude’ distinction

October 2016 – February 2017 Research intern as part of MSc internship at Estelle Laboratory, UCSD (USA)

May 2014 and 2015 Student assistent at the department of Experimental Zoology, Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands)

2011 – 2014 BSc Biology, major "Organismal and Developmental Biology", Wageningen University & Research (The Netherlands)

Publications

Hesen, V.; Boele, Y.; Holmer, R.; Boesten, R.; Wijfjes, R.; Aarts, M.G.M.; van der Putten, W.H.; Scheres, B.;

Willemsen, V. Steep logarithmic increase of genetic variation in natural Arabidopsis thaliana accessions

across geographic scales. BioRxiv (2024). https://doi.org/10.1101/2024.04.26.591275

Hesen, V. Arabidopsis in succession: Pioneering with a molecular model along an ecological gradient. PhD

thesis, Wageningen University (2024). https://doi.org/10.18174/641751

Hesen, V.; Boele, Y.; Bakx-Schotman, T.; van Beersum, F.; Raaijmakers, C.; Scheres, B.; Willemsen, V.; van

der Putten, W. H. Pioneer Arabidopsis thaliana spans the succession gradient revealing a diverse rootassociated microbiome. Environmental Microbiome, 18, 62 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1186/s40793-023-00511-y

Kerstens, M.*; Hesen, V.*; Yalamanchili, K.*; Bimbo, A.; Grigg, S.; Opdenacker, D.; Beeckman, T.; Heidstra,

R.; Willemsen, V. Nature and Nurture: Genotype-Dependent Differential Responses of Root Architecture to

Agar and Soil Environments. Genes 12, 1028 (2021). https://doi.org/10.3390/genes12071028

*shared first author