Project description
How ecological processes influence pesticide-contaminated soils
Microbiome solutions for sustainable agriculture have spurred efforts to isolate microbes for new inoculants, though their effectiveness varies in different soil environments. An ecological perspective may enhance these outcomes. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the MESI project will investigate how priority effects and predation impact bioaugmentation of pesticide-contaminated soils under high temperatures. Using a two-strain pesticide-degrading consortium, the project will analyse its responses to heat and protist predation through pesticide degradation, growth rates, respiration, and metaproteomics. It will conduct 100 identical inoculation replicates in soil microcosms to evaluate priority effects and microbial predation. These microcosms will undergo repeated heat disturbances and reinoculations to assess consortium interactions and bioaugmentation success through DNA-SIP and metagenomics, informing strategies for pesticide remediation in agricultural soils.
Objective
The potential of microbiome solutions in sustainable agriculture and soil health improvement has resulted in accelerated efforts to identify and isolate microbes for novel inoculants; however, inoculation outcome is still variable, especially in the diverse and heterogeneous soil environment. Integrating an ecological perspective into the development of microbial inoculants can greatly improve their success. The MESI project (Microbial Ecology for Successful Inoculation) will study how ecological processes (i.e. priority effects, predation) affect the bioaugmentation of pesticide-contaminated soils in the face of common environmental disturbances (e.g. high temperatures). A two-strain pesticide-degrading consortium will be used as a model. Firstly, the fitness of the consortium members and their response to a gradient of heat disturbance intensities and protist predation will be characterised by analysing pesticide degradation efficiency, growth rates, respiration and metaproteomes. Then, by replicating the inoculation 100 times in identical pesticide-contaminated soil microcosms, the frequency of priority effects after inoculation and the role of microbial predation on variability in establishment will be characterised through metabarcoding. Finally, by exposing contaminated and inoculated soil microcosms to repeated heat disturbances and reinoculation, the effects of these events on intra-consortium and consortium-microbiota trophic interactions and bioaugmentation success will be determined using DNA-SIP coupled with metagenomic analysis. The MESI project will use an integrative approach to systematically assess the expected success rate of inoculation, considering the ecology of the soil/inoculum system and examine how climatic fluctuations influence reinoculation success, with the goal of developing more targeted bioaugmentation practices that improve both sustainability and outcomes.
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.
- engineering and technology environmental biotechnology bioremediation
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology
- natural sciences biological sciences biological behavioural sciences ethology biological interactions
- agricultural sciences agriculture, forestry, and fisheries agriculture
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Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
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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)
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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-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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04318 Leipzig
Germany
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