Project description
Study investigates how microbes help plants adapt to arid environments
Microbial ecosystems forming around plants affect their growth and help them adapt to changing environments. Using natural variation and biogeography, the ERC-funded DryCoAdapt project will seek to dissect how plants evolved along with their microbiota to cope with aridity. The natural distribution of eight pairs of Brassicaceae species will serve as an excellent framework for studying plant-microbe interactions in arid conditions. A common garden experiment will be carried out to compare the microbiomes of all 16 species under drought stress. The study could shed light on whether drought resistance induced by microbes is an evolutionary trait encoded in plant genomes and identify the mechanisms bacteria employ to protect plants from drought.
Objective
How plants evolved to shape their microbiota is a long-standing question in ecology and evolution. I posit that the microbiome forms a crucial part of how plants adapt to changing environments and that this microbiota optimization should be manifested in a strong genomic and phenotypic signature of adaptation. I propose to use natural plant variation and biogeography to dissect how plants evolved along with their microbiota to cope with aridity. Eight within-genus pairs of Brassicaceae species have been identified, distributed vicariously across a steep precipitation gradient. These species pairs represent eight independent instances of adaptation to aridity. This natural distribution offers an excellent framework for studying the evolution of plant-microbe interactions under arid conditions. My team will carry out an eco-evolutionary common garden experiment to compare the microbiomes of all 16 of these species under drought stress. By combining this experimental design with microbiome de-construction and gene deletion experiments, my lab will (i) test the hypothesis that microbially-induced drought resistance in plants is an evolutionary trait encoded in plant genomes (ii) identify the mechanisms that bacteria employ to protect plants from drought, and desert plants employ to attract beneficial bacteria. The sessility of plants dictates a particularly strong need for microbiota optimization in order to respond to a dynamic environment when there is no option to flee. Microbes are known to protect plants from drought stress, and plants are known to enrich particular microbes when stressed, but how these processes are linked remains unknown. This proposal is designed to establish this link by using our extensive knowledge on plant distribution to guide the study of the plant microbiome. Successful implementation will establish if and to what extent plants evolved to supplement their own genomes with those of their microbiota to cope with challenging environments.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- natural sciences biological sciences microbiology bacteriology
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics genomes
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences physical geography
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
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Topic(s)
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Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
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Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
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Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2022-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
91904 JERUSALEM
Israel
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.