The Department welcomes Bianca Bonato as RTDA from July 2024

I have always been fascinated by the study of other living organisms, their evolution and their incredibly abilities of adaptation.

In fact, my research interest focuses precisely on the study of living organisms that are both different from us and other animals, which have followed different evolutionary trajectories from us, but are a surprising example of adaptation: plants! More specifically, my research interests focus on the study of the plant world, and its way of interacting and communicating to each other.

In particular, I am interested in the aspect of social cognition, language and communication among climbing plants and how these social aspects are reflected in the way plants move. To do this, I capitalize on a multidisciplinary approach that includes techniques that are proper of experimental psychology such as three-dimensional kinematic analysis of movement, but also chemical analysis techniques through mass spectroscopy and gas chromatography.

Using these methodologies, a recent line of research of mine specifically deals with analyzing the volatile chemical compounds emitted by plants in social and individual contexts, in order to study their language as if it were a code to be cracked to understand what effects this communication can have on the implementation of their movement and, more generally, how this language is affected by climate change and environmental pollution. 

Furthermore, thanks to a collaboration with a research group from the Plant Science Center of the University of Leeds, which I started during my research period abroad, I am carrying out a research study on the implementation of movement in mutant plants during social contexts. These mutants are incapable of producing or perceiving a chemical compound that allows them to recognize other plants in the surrounding area.

To sum up,  I am very interested in understanding the social and communication dynamics that characterize organisms different from us, from both a comparative and an evolutionary perspective.

I am surrounded by plants also outside of academic life: I have a huge passion for cacti, I have about 20 of them but I have no intention to stop to bring cactus home.

I love being outdoors, spending time with my animals and... I can never sit still. I’m really into running, both on the road and along trails and mountain climbs, always discovering new routes, breathtaking landscapes... and the sandwiches from the retreats on the peaks.