Project description
Understanding microbe-induced plant resistance in agroecosystems
Plant-beneficial microbes have the potential to enhance plant immunity against insects, a phenomenon known as microbe-induced plant resistance (MIR). In plants, this influences insect herbivores and may extend to plant-associated communities. However, current research overlooks the impact of MIR on the trophic chain. The ERC-funded MIMIR project investigates how plant MIR is transmitted and integrated into agroecosystems, opening up new avenues for research. It will use a multidisciplinary approach to address three primary challenges: understanding the molecular regulation of MIR in insect herbivores, examining how MIR extends to the third trophic level, and assessing the impact of MIR on the rhizosphere microbiome. The project provides insights into species interactions within complex systems.
Objective
Plant-beneficial microbes can modulate the plant immune system enhancing plant resistance to insect pests. This phenomenon, known as Microbe-Induced plant Resistance (MIR) has emerged as a sustainable pest control strategy.
Strikingly, my latest results indicate that MIR-immune responses elicited in plants cascade upwards leaving a molecular imprint in surviving insect herbivores (a MIR-imprint). This suggests that MIR-triggered responses in plants could travel beyond the plant and be incorporated into plant-associated communities. However, inclusion of the effects of MIR-elicited responses across different members of the trophic chain, from plants to herbivores, their natural enemies, and the soil microbiome, has been neglected in MIR research.
The overall goal of MIMIR is to unravel how, and to what extent, MIR immune responses triggered in plants are transduced and incorporated in plant-associated communities.
MIMIR will use a multidisciplinary approach combining multi-omics high-throughput techniques, computational biology, functional genomics, and mesocosm experiments to address three main challenges: (1) Disentangling molecular regulation of the onset and functioning of the MIR-imprint in insect herbivores; (2) Unravelling how and to what extent the MIR-imprint crosses to the third trophic level (natural enemies), and its impact on species interactions; and (3) Deciphering how and to what extent MIR imprints the rhizosphere microbiome generating a soil MIR-memory with impacts on aboveground insects.
MIMIR will foster a detailed understanding of how MIR-triggered responses travel from the plant to plant-associated communities, and to what extent they are incorporated into the agroecosystem, launching the field into new and exciting directions. In a broader context, MIMIR will provide multiple crucial insights into the fundamental question of how species interact in complex systems, a question of high relevance for the global challenge of food security.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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Keywords
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC) Main Programme
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC GrantsHost institution
28006 Madrid
Spain