2nd place: wild potatoes in new splendor by Julia Eydam
This beautiful photo was submitted by Julia Eydam to the “Blattgeflüster” Photo Contest. Julia does research at the Chair of Biochemistry at the Friedrich-Alexander University in Erlangen. Under the direction of Prof. Dr. Uwe Sonnewald works here with various crops such as cassava, sugar beet and potatoes. Julia is part of the “potato group” in which the molecular background of tuber formation and the reaction of potatoes to heat and drought are investigated. Solanum pinnatisectum, a wild potato species from central Mexico, is also used, as can be seen in Julia’s photo.
Julia writes about her picture: “I also like to take photos in my free time and I’m always happy when my colleague Rabih and I can photograph plants in our climate chambers. It is fascinating how the plants with different light conditions appear as if from another world and can convey completely different impressions.
For example, the flower of the wild potato (Solanum pinnatisectum) is white in normal daylight. In blue light and seen through a yellow filter, however, it shines blue due to the reflection of the light. The leaves, for example, do not glow green in this light, but red, due to the autofluorescence of the chlorophyll pigments. In this experiment, the blue light is used to stimulate and visualize viruses that are marked with a green fluorescent protein (GFP). This allows us to study the spread of the virus in living plants. The plant shown served as a control in our experiments and was therefore not infected with viruses.”