Johannes Wirz

Goethe's theory of the living world postulates anong other things that inheritance is not a cause but a consequence of life processes. Experiments in molecular genetics strikingly support this postulate. With this project, we would like to investigate this kind of inheritance more closely. As a first step groundsel (Senecio vulgaris) will be cultivated under stress conditions that bring about clear differences in the phenotype: light and shadow, wet and dry, salt stress. From seeds of the various 'environment types' plants will be cultivated through three generations under the conditions described, and in the fourth generation under neutral, i.e. identical environmental conditions and compared with reference to developmental dynamics, plant form and leaf metamorphosis. We expect that characteristics that the plants have inherited in the course of the first three generations will be passed on, i.e. form features of their antecedents will be retained. If the results are positive the experiment will be extended by using Arabidopsis thalinia (thale cress) – the "work horse" of plant molecular genetics. Here too, we shall record developmental dynamics and morphological changes and test it in neutral recultivation. If the experiments are successful, as well as the phenotypic changes we intend to study the epigenetic changes in collaboration with a laboratory equipped to do so. We started the experiment in 2009 and in the autumn of 2009 after three generations will be able to carry out the first test comparison.

A preliminary experiment in which the plants were fertilised with ash from different tree species it was shown that Senecio is particularly appropriate for answering such research questions. Its plasticity in development, overall shape and leaf form is very marked. Likewise, the plants react strongly to the stress conditions imposed on it.

Colleagues:
Renatus Derbidge, Johannes Wirz, Raj Modh, João Felipe Toni