We study varying aspects of plant responses to their environment, at both ecological and evolutionary time scales. We seek to learn the plastic responses and choices plants make under changing environmental conditions, how plants evolve in response to these changes and when they invade novel environments, as well as the way these responses can be applied to deal with environmental issues.
Mechanisms of plant invasion
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Invasive species pose increasing threats to native flora and fauna worldwide, but the mechanisms that facilitate their invasion are still poorly understood. ​
We study the ecology and evolution of invasive plants, including:
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Key traits that facilitate invasion, such as dispersal ability
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How invasive plants change with time since introduction
Decision-making in plants in response to competition
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Plants respond to competition over light or soil resources by plastically modifying their phenotypes in various ways that can promote either competitive dominance, tolerance or avoidance.
We study plants' ability to choose between responses according to:
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Their above ground or below ground competitive environment
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Their evolutionary background across productivity gradients
Phytoremediation and effects of soil pollution on plants
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Soil pollution poses major threats to human health and the environment. Phytoremediation is a low-cost sustainable technique that uses plants for soil remediation.
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​​​We explore the potential for phytoremediation of :
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Heavy-metal pollution using metal hyperaccumulating plants and simulated herbivory and its effect on plant defenses
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Salinity pollution using halophytes and pathogenesis
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​And the effects of soil pollution such as microplastic on plants ​​
Plant Learning
Responses of plants to environmental changes involve the maintenance and processing of external and internal cues and stimuli.
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We study associative learning in the common bean, by measuring their photonastic leaf moments in response to light as an honest stimulus and other neutral stimulus.
Effects of light pollution on plant fitness and pollinators
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Light pollution surrounding urbanization has emerged as a new threat to plants' reproductive success and pollinators visitation due to disruption of their natural cycles of light and darkness
We investigate the consequences of light pollution on wild plants and their pollinators. We focus on plant stress responses, flowering phenology, nectar production and pollination visitation, in collaboration with Yuval Sapir.
Urban green spaces, ecosystem services and plant diversity
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Urban green spaces are valuable for the promotion of both environmental and human health. We study the effects of urban nature sites characteristics on human visitation rates using geospatial analyses of environmental and web-based residents’ surveys, in collaboration with Michelle Talal.
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While public green spaces were shown to promote biodiversity, much less is known about the contribution of private spaces. We study the effect of green spaces of apartment buildings on wild plant species diversity, in collaboration with Efrat Blumenfeld.
