Samuel Wuest

I am interested in how a multicellular organism, such as a flowering plant, develops from a single undifferentiated cell, and how evolutionary forces have shaped and are currently shaping the underlying developmental pathways. In my current work, I am trying to bridge the gap between developmental genetics and experimental ecology to assess how genetic variation in ecologically relevant traits influences plant fitness in different environments. Mainly, I am focusing on resource allocation strategies towards reproduction in plants – which are of great interest from both an ecological as well as agricultural point of view.

Keywords: maternal resource allocation, offspring begging, plant developmental genetics, next-gen sequencing, evo-devo