Description du projet
Examiner les mécanismes de migration des microbes du sol
Les microbes du sol jouent un rôle essentiel dans le recyclage et la distribution des nutriments qui favorisent la croissance des racines. Leur activité détermine essentiellement la fertilité du sol et la santé générale des végétaux. Face aux taux actuels de dégradation des sols, une meilleure compréhension de la migration et de la colonisation des microbes du sol permettrait de revitaliser les sols contaminés ou infertiles. Le projet MICOL-FUNTRANS, financé par le programme MSCA, étudiera le mécanisme de transport médié par les hyphes fongiques, qui facilitent le déplacement des bactéries. Dans un premier temps, le projet caractérisera et identifiera les microbes migrateurs dans des conditions simulées. Il utilisera ensuite les résultats pour mener des recherches in situ révolutionnaires sur le développement du sol dans l’avant-pays stérile d’un glacier arctique.
Objectif
Microbes in soil drive ecosystem services defining life on the Earth. Translocation of these microbes is key features in the spatial exploration of soil. This directly impacts major ecological processes such as niche colonization and the development of soil structure, but knowledge of how microbes migrate in soil is scarce. A potential universal mechanism is fungal hyphae mediated transport (FHMT) where bacteria use hyphae of fungi as a route to translocate in a directed manner. However, this has been solely observed in the laboratory, but not in soil where single-cell level studies are restricted by technical limits. MICOL-FUNTRANS overcomes these limitations by developing and exploiting a novel system combining microfluidics, microbiological and microscopical methods to i) observe microbial movement in soil-like systems and ii) identify single involved organisms. Micro-channels will provide treatments to compare soil colonization and structure formation with and without FHMT. Ultimately, findings will be upscaled to an ecological level in a dedicated field study using a glacier forefield in the Arctic, which constitutes a unique natural laboratory to study initial soil development as ongoing climate change melts glaciers and frees vast areas of barren soil at present.
The results of this project will foster an integrated view on the soil biome and push research on bacterial-fungal interactions to the centre of attention in soil microbiology and related industries. Specifically, knowledge of migration rates of microbes in soil will impact models on nutrient distribution and efforts in bioremediation of contaminated soil. A better understanding of the initial stages of soil structure formation at the micro-scale will impact efforts in soil quality and health preservation related actions, a topic of highest societal and economic interest as the degradation of soil is one of the most pressing environmental threads we are currently facing.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesphysical sciencesclassical mechanicsfluid mechanicsmicrofluidics
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologybacteriology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologymycology
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
Mots‑clés
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Régime de financement
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European FellowshipsCoordinateur
14473 POTSDAM
Allemagne