Post-doc plant (molecular) geneticist

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Plant photosynthesis is the most important biological process, facilitating nearly all of life on earth. It is also the main driver of plant production, converting solar energy into sugars as building blocks for plant biomass and crop yield. Despite very successful breeding efforts to improve crop yield in the past, very little of this improvement can be attributed to an improvement in photosynthesis efficiency. This despite the fact that there is genetic variation for photosynthesis efficiency, although the genes involved have not yet been characterized. In this project, you will follow up on previous quantitative genetic analysis of time-resolved photosynthesis efficiency obtained through our Phenovator facility on the Arabidopsis HapMap population. You will re-analyse the phenotypic data in collaboration with statistical support from WUR-Biometris and you will identify loci and underlying candidate genes involved in contributing to Arabidopsis photosynthesis efficiency under different conditions. You will investigate those candidate genes to identify the actual genetic variation underlying the selected loci and you will elucidate the function of those genes. Together with participating companies in the project, you will explore the options to use the information thus obtained on Arabidopsis to breed for improved photosynthesis efficiency in crop species.

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