Mechanisms of Functional and Physical Genome Reduction in Photosynthetic and Nonphotosynthetic Parasitic Plants of the Broomrape Family

Author Profile

Susann Wicke

Current Position: Postdoc scholar, Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity at the University of Muenster, Germany

Education: M.Sc.: Molecular Phylogenetics & Phylogenomics Group, University of Dresden, Germany; Ph.D.: Systematics and Evolutionary Botany Department, University of Vienna, Austria

Non-scientific Interests: Biking, squash, traveling, and - when at home - cooking for and with friends, relaxing over crime & Sci-Fi novels or movies.

As an undergrad student at Dresden University (Germany), I took a class called "Land plant systematics" and this was actually the first time when I really got to learn about the extraordinary diversity of plants. I decided to take more classes related to plant biology and plant genome evolution, in particular. Soon after, I got to work on my own project in a plant phylogenomics lab, where I focused on genomic rearrangements of nuclear ribosomal DNAs in vascular and nonvascular plants. This work helped me decide that I wanted to be a researcher and study plant genome evolution. It was for my PhD research in Gerald Schneeweiss' lab at the University of Vienna (Austria) that I got in contact with heterotrophic, i.e., parasitic plants, and I am still fascinated about every aspect of this group of plants. Together with Claude dePamphilis at PennState University (USA), where I spent a wonderful time working on a few of the American broomrapes, my research focuses on the genetic and genomic consequences related to the transition to a parasitic lifestyle and the eventual loss of photosynthesis. In my current projects at the University of Muenster (Germany), I pursue investigating causes and consequences of plant heterotrophy by using a comparative phylogenomic approach, also moving on to include functional genomics and proteomics. Besides this, I am also interested in host-parasite coevolution, diversification, and speciation of weedy parasitic plants with a major focus on the broomrape family (Orobanchaceae, e.g. witchweeds) and on mistletoes.