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Die Professionsorientierung der Lehramtsstudiengänge ist ein zentrales Anliegen der universitären Potsdamer Lehrkräftebildung. Seit 1999 finden Evaluationen zur Professionsorientierung statt, die Diskrepanzen zwischen der gewünschten und der erfahrenen Professionsorientierung durch die Studierenden aufzeigen. Im Wintersemester 2013/14 wurden neue Studiengänge an der Universität Potsdam eingeführt. Inwieweit damit auch eine stärkere Professionsorientierung und ein stärkerer Berufsbezug erfolgt ist, ist bislang ungeklärt. In einer Onlinebefragung im Dezember 2018 wurden Studierende der Lehramtsstudiengänge der Universität Potsdam gebeten, die inhaltliche Gestaltung der Lehramtsstudiengänge sowie die Professionsorientierung der Praxisphasen, die Betreuung und Beratung im Rahmen der Praktika, den Nutzen der Praktika für Studium und Beruf und ihre Lehrer:innenkompetenz einzuschätzen. Der Beitrag stellt erste empirische Analysen dar und diskutiert Anregungen zur Weiterentwicklung der Studiengänge mit Bezug auf die Praxisstudien.
Phenotypic plasticity can increase individual fitness when environmental conditions change over time. Inducible defences are a striking example, allowing species to react to fluctuating predation pressure by only expressing their costly defended phenotype under high predation risk. Previous theoretical investigations have focused on how this affects predator–prey dynamics, but the impact on competitive outcomes and broader community dynamics has received less attention. Here we use a small food web model, consisting of two competing plastic autotrophic species exploited by a shared consumer, to study how the speed of inducible defences across three trade-off constellations affects autotroph coexistence, biomasses across trophic levels, and temporal variability. Contrary to the intuitive idea that faster adaptation increases autotroph fitness, we found that higher switching rates reduced individual fitness as it consistently provoked more maladaptive switching towards undefended phenotypes under high predation pressure. This had an unexpected positive impact on the consumer, increasing consumer biomass and lowering total autotroph biomass. Additionally, maladaptive switching strongly reduced autotroph coexistence through an emerging source-sink dynamic between defended and undefended phenotypes. The striking impact of maladaptive switching on species and food web dynamics indicates that this mechanism may be of more critical importance than previously recognized.
Biological invasions may result from multiple introductions, which might compensate for reduced gene pools caused by bottleneck events, but could also dilute adaptive processes. A previous common-garden experiment showed heritable latitudinal clines in fitness-related traits in the invasive goldenrod Solidago canadensis in Central Europe. These latitudinal clines remained stable even in plants chemically treated with zebularine to reduce epigenetic variation. However, despite the heritability of traits investigated, genetic isolation-by-distance was non-significant. Utilizing the same specimens, we applied a molecular analysis of (epi)genetic differentiation with standard and methylation-sensitive (MSAP) AFLPs. We tested whether this variation was spatially structured among populations and whether zebularine had altered epigenetic variation. Additionally, we used genome scans to mine for putative outlier loci susceptible to selection processes in the invaded range. Despite the absence of isolation-by-distance, we found spatial genetic neighborhoods among populations and two AFLP clusters differentiating northern and southern Solidago populations. Genetic and epigenetic diversity were significantly correlated, but not linked to phenotypic variation. Hence, no spatial epigenetic patterns were detected along the latitudinal gradient sampled. Applying genome-scan approaches (BAYESCAN, BAYESCENV, RDA, and LFMM), we found 51 genetic and epigenetic loci putatively responding to selection. One of these genetic loci was significantly more frequent in populations at the northern range. Also, one epigenetic locus was more frequent in populations in the southern range, but this pattern was lost under zebularine treatment. Our results point to some genetic, but not epigenetic adaptation processes along a large-scale latitudinal gradient of S. canadensis in its invasive range.