Skip to main content

Trinity College Dublin, The University of Dublin

Trinity Menu Trinity Search

Botany

You are here People

Anna Kaja Hoeyer

annakaja

Anna Kaja Høyer was educated at the University of Copenhagen. As part of her M.Sc. in Agriculture she worked with Clonostachys rosea as an endophyte and a biocontrol agent of Fusarium wilt in tomato. To learn even more about endophytes, she did an internship at Landcare Research, Manaaki Whenua, New Zealand where she investigated endophyte communities of the invasive weed Field Horsetail.

Anna Kaja Høyer is part of an EU funded programme called CerealPath. This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No. 674964. The focus of the CerealPath research programme is on controlling and understanding important diseases of cereals.

PhD project: Isolation and characterisation of novel fungal root endophytes from wild relatives of barley and wheat for resistance to Fusarium and Gaeumannomyces.

In this project potential new endophytic biological control agents are going to be sampled from wild relatives of wheat and barley. Endophytes are microorganisms that live inside plants without causing symptoms of disease and some of these endophytes have been shown to be beneficial for plants by suppressing diseases. In this project wild relatives will be sampled, their endophyte communities will be characterized using molecular markers and microscopy and a selection of the most promising endophytes will be tested as biocontrol agents in growth chambers and in field conditions. Furthermore, investigations will look into which mechanisms the endophytes are using to protect the cereals.

Contact

Project Supervisor(s)

  • Trevor Hodkinson (Trinity College Dublin)
  • Fiona Doohan (University College Dublin)
  • Brian Murphy (Trinity College Dublin)
  • Donal Fitzgerald (Goldcrop)
  • Birgit Jensen (University of Copenhagen)
  • Hans Jørgen Lyngs Jørgensen (University of Copenhagen)

Selected publications

  • Endophytic colonization of tomato plants by the biological control agent Clonostachys rosea. Høyer et. al 2016. Conference: Biocontrol of Plant Diseases: “From the field to the laboratory and back again" At: Uppsala, Sweden Volume: IOBC-WPRS Bulletin Vol. 115, 2016, ISBN 978-92-9067-299-9 [pp101-106 ]