Rut Sánchez Bragado is Professor from Department of Plant Physiology at University of Barcelona. Her topic of interest is The use of stable isotopes of O, H, C and N as selection tools for yield potential and adaptation to drought and nitrogen deficiency in cereals C3 and C4

In the recent decades, the use of natural abundance of stable isotopes of the four most abundant elements in the biosphere C, H, O and N, with the composition of the corresponding heavy isotopes 13C, 2H, 18O and 15N being considered potential tools to characterize growth, photosynthetic metabolism and transpiration of cereal crops, especially under conditions of abiotic stresses such as drought and nitrogen deficiency. It is helpful the use of isotopes of C, N, O and H such as indicators of plant responses under water stress and low nitrogen conditions and their utility to select genotypes better adapted to those conditions. The phenotyping is carried out through isotopic analysis in different plant organs in order to study which of those organs reflect the genotypic differences in stress response and grain yield, to find out the plant adaptation to the mentioned stress conditions.