Microbial services addressing climate change risks for biodiversity and for agricultural and forestry ecosystems: enabling curiosity-driven research and advancing frontier knowledge

Phytobiomes Alliance project

Funded by

European Union – Horizon Europe Framework Programme (HORIZON)

Duration

5 years

Dates

1 February 2024 - 31 January 2029

Coordinator

MIRRI

Project Overview

Terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems are being challenged by global changes, and threats to agricultural and forestry ecosystems represent some of the most serious environmental and socio-economic menaces that the planet and humanity are facing. Climate change (CG) is widely recognised as one of the most impactful global changes, and since it goes hand-by-hand with biodiversity and services loss in terrestrial ecosystems, they should be tackled together. Microbes constitute the life support system of the biosphere, but they are its most overlooked fraction and are not considered in the context of CG. The overall understanding of the impact of CG on the assembly and functions of microbiomes is still very limited. How the complex microbes-plants-soil interactions and its consequences on plant performance and productivity are impacted by CG is still largely unknown. Additional knowledge also needs to be obtained on the overall ecosystem functioning, and to what extent microbiomes may mitigate stress conditions due to CG.

Objectives

The project MICROBES-4-CLIMATE will provide a wider community of users/researchers, irrespective of location, efficient access to a cluster of complementary world-class Research Infrastructures and their integrated, advanced services along with training and scientific and/or technical support, to address such need. An excellence-driven programme of Transnational Access, which is at the core of the project, will enable users to conduct curiosity-driven research addressing terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystems, in light of the abovementioned multidimensional and still poorly understood microbiomes-plants-soil-environment interactions, and its roles in CG responses, resilience, and mitigation. This will foster the advancement of frontier knowledge and also pave the way to applied research on harnessing plant-microbiome interactions to improve the climate resiliency of plants/crops and to enable e.g., precision, sustainable and resilient agriculture.

Project Partners

  1. MICROBIAL RESOURCE RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE – EUROPEAN RESEARCH INFRASTRUCTURE CONSORTIUM (Coordinator), Portugal
  2. UNIVERSITAT DE VALENCIA, Spain
  3. UNIVERSITEIT GENT, Belgium
  4. ETHNIKO KAI KAPODISTRIAKO PANEPISTIMIO ATHINON, Greece
  5. UNIVERSITA DEGLI STUDI DI TORINO, Italy
  6. CONSIGLIO NAZIONALE DELLE RICERCHE, Italy
  7. INSTITUT NATIONAL DE RECHERCHE POUR L’AGRICULTURE, L’ALIMENTATION ET L’ENVIRONNEMENT, France
  8. ANALYSIS AND EXPERIMENTATION ON ECOSYSTEMS ERIC, France
  9. UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE, Belgium
  10. HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO, Finland
  11. UNIVERSITE DE RENNES, France
  12. LUONNONVARAKESKUS, Finland
  13. CENTRO INTERNAZIONALE DI ALTISTUDI AGRONOMICI MEDITERRANEI, Italy
  14. CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS, France
  15. INSTITUTE OF SOIL SCIENCE, AGRO-TECHNOLOGY AND PLANT PROTECTION NIKOLA POUSHKAROV, Bulgaria
  16. FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM JULICH GMBH, Germany
  17. AGENZIA LUCANA DI SVILUPPO E DI INNOVAZIONE IN AGRICOLTURA, Italy
  18. HELMHOLTZ ZENTRUM MUENCHEN DEUTSCHES FORSCHUNGSZENTRUM FUER GESUNDHEIT UND UMWELT GMBH, Germany
  19. LEIBNIZ – INSTITUT FUER PFLANZENGENETIK UND KULTURPFLANZENFORSCHUNG, Germany
  20. THE UNIVERSITY OF NOTTINGHAM, United Kingdom
  21. WAGENINGEN UNIVERSITY, Netherlands
  22. UNIVERSITEIT UTRECHT, Netherlands
  23. FONDAZIONE EDMUND MACH, Italy
  24. CONSIGLIO PER LA RICERCA IN AGRICOLTURA E L’ANALISI DELL’ECONOMIA AGRARIA, Italy
  25. E-SCIENCE EUROPEAN INFRASTRUCTURE FOR BIODIVERSITY AND ECOSYSTEM RESEARCH, Spain
  26. CAB INTERNATIONAL, United Kingdom
  27. INTERNATIONAL ALLIANCE FOR PHYTOBIOMES RESEARCH, INC, United States
  28. AIT AUSTRIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY GMBH, Austria
  29. SOCIEDADE PORTUGUESA DE INOVACAO CONSULTADORIA EMPRESARIAL E FOMENTO DA INOVACAO SA, Portugal
  30. UNIVERSIDADE DO MINHO, Portugal
  31. SIB SWISS INSTITUTE OF BIOINFORMATICS, Switzerland

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