Project description
Enhancing plant resilience in changing climates
Interactions between plants and microbial mutualists are critical for plant growth through enhancement of nutrient access and stress resilience, especially under extreme temperatures and drought. As climate change intensifies these relationships may play a crucial role in how plants adapt and thrive, particularly in sensitive mountain grasslands. Understanding these dynamics is essential to predicting plant distribution and community responses to changing environments. However, there is limited knowledge about these interactions. With the support of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) programme, the MutualistChange project will use advanced eDNA meta-barcoding to map microbial communities and their interactions with plants. The aim is to identify the causes of observed patterns in plant responses to changing climates, enhancing our understanding of plant resilience and adaptation.
Objective
Plant interactions with microbial mutualists are critical for plant growth, with mutualists enhancing plant access to essential nutrients and ameliorating the effects of stressful environmental conditions such as extreme temperatures and drought. As a result, microbial mutualists may play an important role in mediating plant responses to changing climates. The goal of this project is to elucidate how interactions with microbial mutualists shape plant distributions and communities in response to climate change in mountain grassland habitats. My project builds on recent advances in monitoring techniques like eDNA metabarcoding to characterize microbial communities at large scales, allowing for detection of patterns in the relationships between environmental drivers, plant community composition, and microbial mutualist communities. The novelty of this project lies in the combination of this type of data with an experiment manipulating microbial mutualists, which is essential for identifying the causes underlying observed patterns. Specifically, I aim to (1) determine variation in plant species responsiveness to mutualists with and without drought stress, (2) examine whether mutualist-responsiveness predicts plant distribution responses to drier, warmer climates, and (3) model both direct effects of climate on plant community structure and indirect effects via microbial mutualist communities that are affected by climate and interact with plant communities. In addition to advancing our understanding of how microbial mutualists shape plant communities, this project will facilitate knowledge transfer between me and my host institution. I will receive training in research areas such as advanced statistical modelling and eDNA metabarcoding techniques and analyses, while sharing my expertise in the ecology of plant-microbial mutualist interactions.
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 microbiomes
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
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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.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
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.
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.
Funding Scheme
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.
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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2023-PF-01
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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.
75794 Paris
France
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.