ExYSTEMS LAB

At ExYSTEMS, we investigate how plants persist, adapt and maintain diversity under environmental extremes and global change. We combine macroecological and mechanistic approaches to understand the processes shaping biodiversity and the evolutionary resilience of plant communities, with a particular interest in extreme ecosystems such as cliffs, rocky habitats and alpine environments.

At broad scales, we explore the functional, (phylo)genetic and environmental drivers of multidimensional biodiversity, species distributions and phenotypic variation across environmental gradients and extremes. At the mechanistic level, we investigate how plants respond to harsh and changing conditions through phenotypic plasticity, transgenerational responses and functional strategies, and how these responses are mediated by biotic interactions, including plant–microbe interactions.

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By integrating evolutionary ecology, functional ecology, microbial ecology and conservation biology, ExYSTEMS connects fundamental research with real-world conservation challenges. Ultimately, we aim to understand the processes that determine the vulnerability and resilience of biodiversity to global change, and to translate this knowledge into effective management and conservation actions for ecosystems harbouring unique and threatened biodiversity.

The Team