Research Project

In the project I am working on, we are testing the relative roles of competition and plant soil feedbacks in explaining commonness and rarity of native and alien plant species.

We want to know in how far differences in intraspecific competition and frequency-dependent plant soil feedback may explain differences in species abundance. Therefore we are conducting experiments that focus on three aspects of plant life history (individual plant growth/ plant population growth/ establishment success)

We test whether individual plant growth of the common species is less affected by high intraspecific plant frequency and when grown on soils previously occupied by themselves (at increasing frequencies), than performance of the rare species.

Secondly, we want to know whether fungal pathogens and intraspecific competition affect population growth rates of annual plant species communities of rare and common natives and aliens.

Furthermore we are testing whether establishment success of common natives and aliens in the field is linked to competitive ability, lower impact of soil pathogens or a combination of both.

Publication List

Müller G, Horstmeyer L, Rönneburg T, van Kleunen M & Dawson W (2016)
Alien and native plant establishment in grassland communities is more strongly affected by disturbance than above- and below-ground enemies.
Journal of Ecology in press.

Müller G, van Kleunen M & Dawson W (2016)
Commonness and rarity of alien and native plant species - The roles of intraspecific competition and plant-soil feedback.
Oikos in press.

Johansson V A, Müller G, Eriksson O. (2013).
Dust seed production and dispersal in Swedish Pyroleae species.
Nordic Journal of Botany
32:209-214.

Education

Member of the International Max Planck Research School (IMPRS) of Organismal Biology  

March 2013 – present PhD Student University of Konstanz
October 2010 - Januar 2013 M.Sc. Ecology University of Bremen
October 2007 – September 2010 B.Sc. Geoecology University of Tübingen