Euphrasia species were rarely investigated at the level of breeding system and genetic variability. Knowledge about breeding systems and pollinators are mainly based on morphology of the flowers. Experimental work is only done for a few species in Great Britain. Hybridisation and introgression have been observed between most of the species living sympatrically, but no experiments have been done to determine to which degree hybridisation takes place and how it influences the following generations. My phD consists of two parts. In autumn 2000 I started a garden experiment with sowing 5 Euphrasia species growing in alpine regions. With the resulting plants I did artificial selfing and intra- and interspecific crossing and checked the resulting seed-set. This seeds I sowed in autumn 2001. They will germinate soon so I can do further experiments with the F1 generation in summer 2002.

In the second part of my phD I have planed to observe flower phenology, pollinators and pollination in artificially established mixed populations of two alpine Euphrasia species in Cadagno (TI). I will screen the resulting F1 for hybrids using genetic and morphological markers.

1998 -2000 Diploma thesis: Aspects of live cycle, phenotypic and genotypic variability of Euphrasia minima.
2000- PhD thesis: Breeding system, flower phenology and pollination of five alpine Euphrasia species