MPI for Biology Tübingen

Rebecca Schwab

Ecological Genetics

Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen
IMPRS Adjunct Faculty

Portrait of Rebecca Schwab, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen

Portrait of Rebecca Schwab, a group leader at the Max Planck Institute for Biology Tübingen

Vita

PhD, MPI for Developmental Biology (2006)
Postdoctoral training, Cold Spring Harbor Laboratories (2006-2008) and IBMP-CNRS/ETH Zürich (2009-2012)
Staff scientist, MPI for Developmental Biology (2012-2018)
Project leader, MPI for Biology Tübingen (since 2019)

Research Interest

We study plant-pathogen interaction from an ecological perspective and bring our knowledge of the genes that mediate the interaction back into the field. For this, we look at wild plant populations and investigate the genetic heterogeneity of pathogen virulence and host resistance genes - together with their distribution across space and their (co-)evolution over time. Our study system is the small cruciferous weed Arabidopsis thaliana and its specialist oomycete pathogen Hyaloperonospora arabidopsidis, a beautiful example for gene-for-gene interaction.

A field of flowering Arabidopsis thaliana in the front, with mountains and a blue sky in the background

A field of flowering Arabidopsis thaliana in the front, with mountains and a blue sky in the background

Available PhD Projects

Currently not recruiting doctoral researchers.

Selected Reading

Karasov TL, Neumann M, Leventhal L, Symeonidi E, Shirsekar G, Hawks A, Monroe G; Pathodopsis Team; Exposito-Alonso M, Bergelson J, Weigel D and Schwab R. (2024). Continental-scale associations of Arabidopsis thaliana phyllosphere members with host genotype and drought. Nature Microbiology. doi: 10.1038/s41564-024-01773-z
Karasov TL, Shirsekar G, Schwab R and Weigel D. (2020). What natural variation can teach us about resistance durability. Current Opinion in Plant Biology. doi: 10.1016/j.pbi.2020.04.01