Specialised foraging skills could have made the essential difference  › more

At the 37th meeting of the International Society of Chemical Ecology (ISCE) held from 8-12 August 2022 in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, our PhD student  Jessil Pajar achieved the second place in the…  › more

Chemical "cry for help" from trees verified in a natural habitat for the first time  › more

Spruces even digest parts of themselves during periods of starvation to ensure long-term survival  › more

PhD student Axel Touw won third price for his poster Vlog, which he prepared for  the Symposium of Insect-Plant interactions 2021. The topic of his poster was "Riddles in the dark: Root-knot…  › more

In the upcoming two years, MIE will host the team of professor Martin Schlegel (UL) in our molecular lab. Here you see Stefan Schaffer and Jule Freudenthal in the lab, working hard to process the…  › more

Bart Swinkels has joined the Molecular Interaction Ecology (MIE) group to conduct his MSc internship. He completed his Bachelor of Science in Molecular Life Sciences at the Radboud University…  › more

Molecular Interaction Ecology is welcoming Pius Otto to the group. Pius is an Erasmus Mundus student in the joint master degree of PLANT HEALTH IN SUSTAINABLE CROPPING SYSTEMS, following the…  › more

Ilaria Chiocchio has joined MIE as a scientific guest from the University of Bologna. At the University of Bologna Ilaria is part of the "Health, Safety and Green systems" PhD prgram, where…  › more

Alexander Krüger has joined the Molecular Interaction Ecology (MIE) group as a research assistant and to write his MSc thesis. He obtained his Bachelor of Science in Biology at the University of…  › more

After succesfully defending his PhD thesis at the University of Bern, Con van Doan has joined the MIE group. Cong will work as a technical assistant in the project of Leonardo Bassi,…  › more

Our Media and Communications unit made a  very nice series of videos of the iDiv platforms. In addition, they made an integrated video, where the iDiv platforms are presented as a network. As…  › more

Over the last months, several MIE group members presented their research on plant health related topics. However, this would not have been possible without the MIE management team. Next to…  › more

Four excellent MS students of the Master Ecology and Evolutionary Systematics (MEES) were selected to participate in Honours Programme at FSU Jena. MSc students Dongik Chang, Alex Krüger, Sheethal…  › more

Dongik Chang, has recently joined the Molecular Interaction Ecology (MIE) group as a research assistant and to write her MSc thesis. Dongik studied environmental health science in South Korea and…  › more

MIE celebrates Plant Health, featuring Adam Anaia: “I am Redouan Adam Anaia from the Netherlands. During my bachelor in Molecular Life Sciences, I became intrigued by plant chemodiversity and its…  › more

Jessil Pajar’s first poster from her PhD project won the 2nd place at the Max Planck-Chemical Ecology Institute symposium! Jessil is working on a project entitle “Tapping into signaling interaction…  › more

On 21 October 2020 we had the first PhD defence in MIE. Crispus Mbaluto defended his PhD thesis with great success; due to the Corona measurements the defence was held online. The hat that Crispus…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. October 2020 is the month of…  › more

Redouan Adam Anaia has joined the Molecular Interaction Ecology group at the German Centre for Integrated Biodiversity Research (iDiv) as a PhD student. Adam will work on the the chemodiversity of…  › more

Like in many other organisms, the guts of insects are full of many different bacteria. These bacteria can help their host to overcome toxic diets or can boost its resistance to pathogens. Rebekka…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. September 2020 is the month of…  › more

Like many other crops sunflowers suffer from soil- born pathogens like the fungus Verticillium dahliae, which can cause up to 30% yield loss. The usual way in agriculture to control this fungus…  › more

Congratulations to Crispus Mbaluto! The first chapter of his PhD thesis is now online at AoB PLANTS. His research, funded by DAAD,  shows that the effect of aboveground caterpillar feeding on…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. August 2020 is the month of Ming…  › more

On Sunday 9 August 2020 the local TV station MDR broadcasted the documentary "Wie geht es unseren Insekten". It highlights iDiv research on insect decline,  including the Flexpool project…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. July 2020 is the month of Axel…  › more

If anything, the Corona crisis forces us to be creative about our teaching. For the third year Bachelor Biology course “Vom Molekül zu komplexen Gemeinschaften (BB3.Ö13)“ at FSU Jena, PhD student…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. June 2020 is the month of Rebekka…  › more

Today, Su Görth, Alexander Weinhold and Andreas Schedl took a course to freshen up their First Aid skills.  Their efforts will ensure that MIE and others at iDiv will get assistance when needed.…  › more

We are currently advertising for a postdoctoral researcher and a technician to join our group in iDiv. The Postdoc will join the Ecometeor, iDiv’s support unit for ecometabolomics, and will focus on…  › more

On a recently released video on the iDiv YouTube channel, former MIE member Martin Volf induces large oak trees with methyljasmonate. He carries out this experiment at a stunning height of more than…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. May 2020 is the month of Qianhan…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. In addition to scientists, also…  › more

The BeMOST project lead by Maria Pappas (Democritus University of Thrace) published its website. This collaborative research project is funded by Hellenic Foundation for Research and Innovation…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. March 2020 is the month of Dimitra…  › more

Molecular Interaction Ecology welcomes Nerea Perez Andres from Maastricht University (the Netherlands) to the group. Together with Dr. Fredd Vergara, Nerea will study the chemical profiles of root-…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). Every month, one of our team members introduces his or her interest in plant health. February 2020 is the month of…  › more

The Molecular Interaction Ecology group has welcomed three new group members in January. Dr. Guadalupe Andraca Gómez has started working on the InsektMobil project. This citizen science project aims…  › more

The year 2020 is the United Nations' International Year of Plant Health (IYPH). The year aims to raise global awareness on how protecting plant health can help end hunger, reduce poverty, protect the…  › more

We are looking for an enthusiastic PhD candidate to join our research group. The aim of the project is to gain a deeper mechanistic understanding of the ecological and evolutionary drivers of a…  › more

Over the last weeks, several MIE members got the good news that their papers would be accepted in the Open Access Journal “Frontiers in Plant Science”. Rebekka Sontowski and Axel Touw each published…  › more

On Monday the 2nd of December, MIE welcomed class 12 of the Louise-Otto-Peters-school from Leipzig to the molecular lab. The students visited the MIE labs despite their day off and got an insight in…  › more

On 5 December 2019 the German Science Foundation DFG approved the application of the Research Unit “Ecology and Evolution of Intraspecific Chemodiversity in Plants”. Nicole van Dam and Fredd Vergara…  › more

On 15 October 2019,  MDR TV broadcasted a beautiful documentary on the Leipzig botanical garden, the oldest botanical garden in Germany. You will see our iDiv gardener Alvin, our former gardener…  › more

Molecular Interaction Ecology welcomes Lisa Steiniger from the Wilhelm-Ostwald-Gymnasium (Leipzig) to the group. In the coming year, Lisa will study how belowground herbivory by larvae of the cabbage…  › more

iDiv postdoctoral researcher Martin Volf received an Alexander von Humboldt Return Fellowship to continue his research on chemical defence mechanisms of trees against herbivorous insects. Volf has…  › more

Rebekka Sontowski (iDiv, FSU) honored for her outreach activities of the MIE group  › more

Melody is a third-year undergraduate majoring in Applied Plant and Soil Science at the University of British Columbia (UBC) in Vancouver, Canada. She won the Go Global Self-Directed Research Award…  › more

On Friday 7 June a film crew of MDR visited our lab and greenhouses to get an impression of the research that's done at MIE. The takes they made will be part of a documentary on the botanical gardens…  › more