Some of the world’s most impoverished habitats are found in the Southwest of Australia. There, biologist and Schrödinger Fellow Christiana Staudinger has found the ideal setting to investigate how plants and soils adapt to such harsh conditions. Surprisingly, this region’s flora is also full of life and very diverse, as the young scholar reports from […] Continue reading “Plant species interactions in Perth”
As studies have shown, higher biodiversity enhances the benefits derived from the vineyard ecosystem. Within the context of a project funded by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, researchers investigated the interaction of soil cultivation and landscape structure in European wine regions. Continue reading “More life between vine rows”
With the support of the FWF, Hannes Schuler investigates fruit tree pests and their parasitic ‘lodgers’. He wants to find out which Wolbachia bacteria occur in which cherry fruit fly species, how they are transferred and what this means for the successful reproduction of the flies. Continue reading “Cherry-picking among flies”
Fertilisers and pest control are central elements of agriculture and have a direct impact on the composition of species found in crop fields. Supported by the Austrian Science Fund FWF, a research group and helping hands from the University of Innsbruck are engaged in field research, using ecological and molecular methods to find out which […] Continue reading “Manure boosts beneficial predators in agriculture”