Plants under extreme conditions: surviving in the desert

Surviving in the Atacama or Namib desert is a huge challenge. How do plants manage to defy the heat and lack of water in these extreme environments? This is one of the main research interests of Julia Bechteler. The biologist has been Professor of Phylogenomics and Systematics of Plants and Fungi at LMU since April 2024. Her research focuses on the biodiversity of plants, especially bryophytes and desert plants, and the genetic mechanisms by which plants adapt to their habitats.

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With her appointment at LMU, Julia Bechteler has returned to her alma mater, where she studied biology and chemistry for academic high school teachers. After the state examination, however, she decided to pursue her passion for science. “Plants in all their diversity have fascinated me since childhood,” she recounts. While completing her undergraduate thesis, she discovered how much she enjoyed laboratory work and the international research atmosphere. So she undertook a doctorate at LMU’s Botanical Institute. This was followed by postdoc positions at the University of Bonn and as a junior professor for biodiversity and plant ecology at the University of Kaiserslautern-Landau (RPTU), before she took up her new role at LMU.

Bryophytes: an ancient group with a recent diversity

Bechteler’s passion for studying bryophytes began during her PhD. This ancient plant group is not only extremely diverse, but is also represented in almost all ecosystems on Earth, where it plays vital roles. As part of an international study, the biologist was recently able to review the genealogical relationships of bryophytes using phylogenomic trees. She discovered that bryophytes, even today, are extraordinarily adaptable: “The current diversity of bryophytes is surprisingly young,” she explains. “With my team, I’m in the process of genetically and ecologically investigating these young speciation and dispersal events.” Bryophytes are potentially a plant group that is capable of adapting relatively quickly to new environmental conditions.

“My work on plants in the Atacama and Namib deserts started during my postdoc career,” recalls Bechteler. “The Nees Institute for Biodiversity of Plants at the University of Bonn, where I worked, is part of the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Earth – Evolution at the dry limit,’ which seeks to better understand the evolution of the Earth and of life under conditions of extreme drought. This fascinated me, and desert formation is also an important topic with respect to global change.” Today, Bechteler leads a subproject which investigates the genetic adaptations of desert plants to drought. To this end, she conducts open-air research in the field as well as genetic analyses in the laboratory. Her investigations are centered on three species from the Loasaceae family that are widely distributed in arid regions. “Visually, these plants are rather unassuming at first glance: They’re large shrubs with small white flowers and gray leaves, which are covered all over with little hairs. This is a classic adaptation to strong UV radiation. Thanks to their wide distribution ranges, these plants are excellent study systems to understand plant adaptation to deserts in general as well as to the different ecological locations within deserts.”

Genetic mechanisms for coping with drought stress

For her investigations, Bechteler and her cooperation partners set up transects – a series of linear measurement and observation points – along the Chilean coastline and in the direction of the Andes. She studies around 200 to 250 plants there every year. “We analyze their growth and ecological factors like water availability and nutrients,” she explains. In addition, she investigates the gene expression of selected plants in order to analyze the mechanisms of adaptation to drought stress and compare them with those of other desert plants. In this way, she is seeking to find out whether there is a common set of genes that is relevant to drought adaptation among plants living in deserts.

Bechteler emphasizes the importance of her basic research, as most studies to date have concentrated on model plants and many mechanisms are still unknown in non-model plants. “It’s exciting to investigate plants that are found directly in their extreme natural habitats,” she says. In the long term, these findings could help make crops more robust against drought or heat, thus responding to the challenges of climate change.

She appreciates the outstanding research conditions available at LMU: “The Botanical Garden is right next door, for example, and it has a wonderful herbarium. It’s only a stroll away, which makes the work very pleasant.” She also values the interdisciplinary collaboration with geologists, geochemists, and meteorologists to better understand the complex interactions between plants, soils, and climate. “This exchange is hugely enriching and expands one’s horizons.”