CREAFTalk with Catherine Preece - Root exudates, the connection between plants and soils in natural and agricultural systems. 

In this talk, Catherine will discuss the ways in which plant-soil interactions are mediated by root exudates, highlighting results from her work in both natural and agricultural ecosystems. She will link this to two themes that run through her past and ongoing research:

1. how drought modifies plant ecophysiology, and
2. the effect of domestication on the rhizosphere.

Who is Catherine Preece?

Catherine is a plant and soil ecologist and her current work focuses on the impact of drought on plant-soil interactions. She is currently particularly interested in differences in root and rhizosphere traits between crops and their wild relatives, which she studies in the context of her ERC Consolidator grant ‘WILD-ROOTS’. She also studies the feedbacks between plant and soil function and diversity, and the importance of soil communities for ecosystem stability and soil health.