Yannik Müllers: Plant Physiology First Author

Yannik Müllers, first author of “Stomatal conductance tracks soil-to-leaf hydraulic conductance in faba bean and maize during soil drying”

Current Position: PhD candidate at IBG-2, Plant Sciences, Forschungszentrum Jülich, Germany

Education: Master’s degree in biophysics at Saarland University, Germany

Non-scientific Interests: Playing basketball

 Brief bio: I am a biophysicist by training and interested in understanding processes in biological systems using physical models. Since this was largely limited to single cell systems in my bachelor’s and master’s studies, a PhD project on the biophysics of plant-water relations, offered by Dr. van Dusschoten at the IBG-2 of Forschungszentrum Jülich caught my attention. Currently, I am working on this project and try to answer how soil drying affects root hydraulic properties and how this shapes the overall response of different crops to water scarcity. A key to answer these questions are spatially resolved data on root water uptake rates which are measured with a highly precise soil water sensor, developed in-house, combined with modelling approaches and imaging of root systems using MRI.