The Chair of Plant Biodiversity introduces itself
Since 2010, Karsten Wesche has been head of the Botany Department of the Senckenberg Museum für Naturkunde Görlitz, which consists of 4 sections and currently a total of 10 scientists. K. Wesche has been a professor at TU Dresden since 2015, and Christiane Ritz from the Botany Department has also been a private lecturer at the Faculty of Biology since 2020. Both are dedicated to higher plants, but the department also works on systematics and floristics of lichens & mosses (V. Otte) and on the taxonomy of plant pathogenic fungi (U. Damm). Evolutionary biology and taxonomic questions also play a special role in the working group of C. Ritz, where the focus is primarily on the rose family (e.g. Herklotz et al. 2021).
However, the Ritz and Wesche working groups in particular also pursue applied topics. Not least thanks to our collections and close cooperation with Citizen Scientists, we can offer identification aids for the flora of Germany in printed and digital form. For example, together with colleagues from the Faculty of Biology at TU Dresden and Univ. Halle, we publish the Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland in three volumes; the 22nd edition of Germany's leading plant identification book is freshly published in December 2021 (Müller et al. 2021). In addition, there are extensive digital offerings, such as online herbaria with securely determined material or a database on chromosome numbers[1] . These are currently being linked in a project with the Federal Agency for Nature Conservation to form a comprehensive specialist information portal[2] .
We are pursuing ecological and conservation biology topics within the framework of the BMBF project MORESTEP[3] , among others, but also through Oyundelger Khurelpurev's PhD, which is funded by the TU Dresden. In Mongolia, we are working on the ecological consequences of land use and climate change (Munkhzul et al. 2021; Oyundelger et al. 2021). Land use aspects are also central to our research on the effects of agriculture on plants, but also on insect diversity (incl. genetic level; Lorenz et al. 2021; Schuch et al. 2020). With the new project MosaikTeil[4] , also funded by the BfN, we are committed to nature conservation in the Upper Lusatian Heath and Pond Landscape. Together with a large number of partners, nature conservation measures will be implemented here over the next six years in ponds, sand heaths, moors and pine forests, accompanied by broad-based monitoring of plant and animal species. However, networking of regional environmental education plays a major role in the project; for example, a virtual reality "Life under Water" and an excursion guide to the region are being developed.
This project in particular offers an excellent interface with the Master's programme Organismic and Molecular Biodiversity that we organise. We offer annual excursions to the biosphere reserve. In general, the focus of our courses is on botanical species knowledge, ecology and conservation, and statistical methods.
Botany quotes
Herklotz, V., Kovarik, A., Wissemann, V., Lunerova, J., Vozarova, R., Buschmann, S., Olbricht, K., Groth, M., & Ritz, C.M. (2021): Power and weakness of repetition - Evaluating the phylogenetic signal from repeatomes in the family Rosaceae with two case studies from genera prone to polyploidy and hybridization (Rosa and Fragaria). - Frontiers in Plant Science 12
Lorenz, J., Heinrich, R., Schneider, A., Schwager, M., Herklotz, V., Wesche, K., & Ritz, C.M. (2021): Invasive populations of Spiraea tomentosa (Rosaceae) are genetically diverse but decline during succession in forest habitats. - Plant Biology 23: 749-759
Müller, F., Ritz, C.M., Welk, E., & Wesche, K. (Eds.) (2021): Rothmaler Exkursionsflora von Deutschland. Grundband. Springer; Berlin, Heidelberg: 944 p.
Munkhzul, O., Oyundelger, K., Jäschke, Y., Narantuya, N., Tuvshintogtokh, I., Oyuntsetseg, B., & Wesche, K. (2021): Grazing effects on Mongolian steppe vegetation - a systematic review of local literature. - Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution: 703220
Oyundelger, K., Herklotz, V., Harpke, D., Oyuntsetseg, B., Wesche, K., & Ritz, C.M. (2021): Contrasting effects of local environment and grazing pressure on the genetic diversity and structure of Artemisia frigida. - Conservation Genetics 22: 947-962
Schuch, S., Ludwig, H., & Wesche, K. (2020): Erfassungsmethoden für ein Insektenmonitoring - Eine Materialsammlung. Federal Agency for Nature Conservation; Bonn: 70 p.
[1] https://webapp.senckenberg.de/bestikri; https://webapp.senckenberg.de/lausitzherbar; http://chromosomes.senckenberg.de
[4] http://biologischevielfalt.bfn.de/bundesprogramm/projekte/projektbeschreibungen/mosaikteil.html