Dr Alexander Weinhold

Postdoc

Research focus

My research focuses on plant-herbivore interactions as well as the interactions within plant communities. Since many of these interactions are mediated by chemical compounds, I am aiming to understand these interactions through the analysis of aboveground (volatile organic compounds VOCs and leaf secondary metabolites) and belowground (VOCs and exudates) plant chemicals.

VOCs play an important role in the interactions of plants with other plants, herbivores or microbes. They can have defensive functions but can also be used for host finding and as stress signals. By analyzing the VOC composition of plants challenged by either biotic or abiotic stresses, I aim to get a better understanding of the role VOCs play in those interactions and how they are involved in the emergence and maintenance of biodiversity.

Belowground and in particular rhizosphere chemicals, or metabolites, can be of different origins. They can be produced by soil biota, exuded by plant roots or leached from litter. Root exudates and litter leachates in turn can affect soil biota and alter the composition of microbial communities. The exact nature of the compounds involved in belowground signaling is mostly unknown. That is why I am using untargeted metabolomics analyses to provide a better understanding how plant metabolites are shaping interactions and biodiversity in the soil.

ResearchGate

Orcid

Keywords

Metabolomics, secondary metabolites, plant volatiles, root exudates, root volatiles, plant-herbivore interactions, ecometabolomics

Current projects

Associated PostDoc in CRC AquaDiva (SFB 1076) - B01: "Composition of Tree-derived Organic Matter and Its Effect on Subsurface Microbial Processes: Feedback to Plants and Nutrient Cycling".

Researcher in the International Research Training Group TreeDì (GRK 2324): "Tree Diversity Interactions: The role of tree-tree interactions in local neighbourhoods in Chinese subtropical forests".

Co-PI in the Leibniz Competition project VolCorn: "Volatilome of a Cereal Crop-Microbiota System under Drought & Flooding".

Short CV

December 2014 – Now

PostDoc at the German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) in the group of Nicole van Dam.

April 2013 – December 2014

PostDoc at the Joint Research Centre of the European Commission, Institute for Reference
Materials and Measurements in Geel, Belgium, working on the authentication of olive oils and wines by means of HPLC-MS and GC-MS combined with metabolomics.

June 2012 – March 2013

PostDoc in the Group of Phyllis Coley and Thomas Kursar at the Biology Department of the University of Utah, working on deciphering the chemical diversity of the tropical tree genus Inga by means of UPLC-qToFMS.

2008 - 2012

PhD student/ Dissertation at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in the group of Prof. Dr. Ian T. Baldwin on the topic “Understanding the role of trichomes in plant-herbivore interactions”.

2007 - 2008

Diploma/Master thesis at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in the group of Prof. Dr. Ian T. Baldwin on "Multivariate analysis of volatile emissions from wild tobacco Nicotiana attenuata using GCxGC-ToFMS" co-supervised by Professors Dr. Ian T. Baldwin and Dr. Georg Pohnert (Institute of Analytical Chemistry, Friedrich Schiller University Jena).

Selected Publications

Endara, M.-J., Weinhold, A., Cox, J. E., Wiggins, N. L., Coley, P. D., Kursar, T. A. (2015), Divergent evolution in antiherbivore defences within species complexes at a single Amazonian site. Journal of Ecology, 103: 1107–1118. doi: 10.1111/1365-2745.12431

Weinhold, A.; Baldwin, I. T. (2011). Trichome-derived O-acyl sugars are a first meal for caterpillars that tags them for predation. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, 108(19), 7855-7859. doi:10.1073/pnas.1101306108

Stork, W. F. J.; Weinhold, A.; Baldwin, I.T. (2011). Trichomes as dangerous lollipops: do lizards also use caterpillar body and frass odor to optimize their foraging? Plant Signaling & Behavior, Volume 6 Issue 12 1893-1896 doi:10.4161/psb.6.12.18028

Weinhold, A.; Shaker, K.; Wenzler, M.; Schneider, B.; Baldwin, I.T. (2011). Phaseoloidin, a homogentisic acid glucoside from Nicotiana attenuata trichomes, contributes to the plant’s resistance against Lepidopteran herbivores. Journal of Chemical Ecology, Volume 37 1091-1098 doi:10.1007/s10886-011-0012-7

Gaquerel, E.; Weinhold, A.; Baldwin, I. T. (2009). Molecular interactions between the specialist herbivore Manduca sexta (Lepidoptera, Sphigidae) and its natural host Nicotiana attenuata. VIII. An unbiased GCxGC-ToFMS analysis of the plant´s elicited volatile emissions. Plant Physiology, 149(3), 1408-1423. doi:10.1104/pp.108.130799

iDiv publications

Klimm, S. F., Weinhold, A., Volf, M.

(2020): Volatile production differs between oak leaves infested by leaf-miner Phyllonorycter harrisella (Lepidoptera: Gracillariidae) and galler Neuroterus quercusbaccarum (Hymenoptera: Cynipidae). EJE 117(1), 101-109

DOI

Calf, O. W., Huber, H., Peters, J. L., Weinhold, A., Poeschl, Y., van Dam, N. M.

(2019): Gastropods and Insects Prefer Different Solanum dulcamara Chemotypes. Journal of Chemical Ecology 45(2), 146-61

DOI

Huang, J., Hammerbacher, A., Weinhold, A., Reichelt, M., Gleixner, G., Behrendt, T., van Dam, N. M., Sala, A., Gershenzon, J., Trumbore, S., Hartmann, H.

(2019): Eyes on the future – evidence for trade-offs between growth, storage and defense in Norway spruce. New Phytologist 222(1), 144-58

DOI

Ristok, C., Poeschl, Y., Dudenhöffer, J.-H., Ebeling, A., Eisenhauer, N., Vergara, F., Wagg, C., van Dam, N. M., Weinhold, A.

(2019): Plant species richness elicits changes in the metabolome of grassland species via soil biotic legacy. Journal of Ecology 107(5), 2240-2254

DOI

Data

Calf, O. W., Huber, H., Peters, J. L., Weinhold, A., van Dam, N. M.

(2018): Glycoalkaloid composition explains variation in slug resistance in Solanum dulcamara. Oecologia 187(2), 495-506

DOI

Huang, J., Hartmann, H., Hellén, H., Wisthaler, A., Perreca, E., Weinhold, A., Rücker, A., van Dam, N. M., Gershenzon, J., Trumbore, S. E., Behrendt, T.

(2018): New perspectives on CO2, temperature and light effects on BVOC emissions using online measurements by PTR-MS and cavity ring-down spectroscopy. Environmental Science & Technology 52(23), 13811-23

DOI

Pappas, M. L., Liapoura, M., Papantoniou, D., Avramidou, M., Kavroulakis, N., Weinhold, A., Broufas, G. D., Papadopoulou, K. K.

(2018): The Beneficial Endophytic Fungus Fusarium solani Strain K Alters Tomato Responses Against Spider Mites to the Benefit of the Plant. Frontiers in Plant Science 9, 1603

DOI

PDF

Peters, K., Worrich, A., Weinhold, A., Alka, O., Balcke, G., Birkemeyer, C., Bruelheide, H., Calf, O. W., Dietz, S., Duhrkop, K., Gaquerel, E., Heinig, U., Kucklich, M., Macel, M., Muller, C., Poeschl, Y., Pohnert, G., Ristok, C., Rodriguez, V. M., Ruttkies, C., Schuman, M., Schweiger, R., Shahaf, N., Steinbeck, C., Tortosa, M., Treutler, H., Ueberschaar, N., Velasco, P., Weiss, B. M., Widdig, A., Neumann, S., van Dam, N. M.

(2018): Current Challenges in Plant Eco-Metabolomics. International Journal of Molecular Sciences 19(5)

DOI

Luu, V. T., Weinhold, A., Ullah, C., Dressel, S., Schoettner, M., Gase, K., Gaquerel, E., Xu, S., Baldwin, I. T.

(2017): O-acyl sugars protect a wild tobacco from both native fungal pathogens and a specialist herbivore. Plant Physiology 174(1), 370-86

DOI

Bixenmann, R. J., Coley, P. D., Weinhold, A., Kursar, T. A.

(2016): High herbivore pressure favors constitutive over induced defense. Ecology and Evolution 6(17), 6037-49

DOI

van Dam, N. M., Weinhold, A., Garbeva, P.

(2016): Calling in the Dark: The Role of Volatiles for Communication in the Rhizosphere. In: Blande, D. J., Glinwood, R. (Eds.) Deciphering Chemical Language of Plant Communication Springer International Publishing, Cham, p. 175-210

DOI

Deutscher Platz 5e
04103 Leipzig, Germany

Room

4.212

+49 341 9733163

alexander.weinhold@idiv.de

Affiliation

Friedrich Schiller University Jena