Thesis Design

The Early Flooding Signal
‘A thesis by Sjon Hartman, PhD’

Thesis cover and editorial design for 'The Early Flooding Signal - Ethylene Acclimates Plants To Survive Low-Oxygen Stress' by Sjon Hartman PhD., a molecular plant biologist and researcher at the Plant Ecophysiology group of Utrecht University.

A vast amount of the world’s harvest is lost annually due to floods. Like us humans, plants require oxygen to survive, and most terrestrial species will eventually die if they spend too much time under water. Hartman and his co-researchers recently demonstrated that plants use the hormone ethylene as a signal to adapt to low-oxygen conditions.

Hartman studies how an early ethylene signal leads to increased hypoxia tolerance. In addition, he aims to research whether variation in this process explains why some plants are flood-tolerant, while others are not. The ultimate goal is to use the insights gained from this research to develop more flood-tolerant crops.