Lucas Peralta has now started his experimental work

Lucas Peralta has a BSc degree in environmental science from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. He has won a prestigious TALENT scholarship, which is a top-grant supporting our grant on "Inducible barriers to radial oxygen loss in plant roots" funded by Independent Research Fund Denmark.

The overall research question of his thesis work is related to the protective function of the root barrier to radial O2 loss (ROL) but not in the traditional context where the ROL barrier is considered an adaptive feature to diminish the radial diffusion of O2 from root tissues to the hypoxic or anoxic rhizosphere. Instead, the research focuses on the root ROL barrier and its possible role in restricting influx of soil phytotoxins produced in the rhizosphere by anaerobic bacteria. The soil phytotoxins include H2S (gaseous sulphide), low molecular monocarboxylic acids (e.g., acetic, propionic, butyric and hexanoic acids) and reduced metals (Mn2+ and Fe2+).

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Lucas is running one of his first experiments where he is measuring the influence of H2S on tissue respiration by rice roots.