CLIMIFUN
Climatic and temporal drivers of microbial diversity ecosystem functioning
This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 702057.
Despite the importance of soil microbial communities for ecosystem functioning and human welfare, little is known about the mechanisms controlling the biodiversity of these communities, and the role of their attributes in regulating key ecosystem processes such as nutrient cycling. Many studies have identified the ecological drivers of plant and animal diversity. However, much less is known about the interactive effects of multiple ecological drivers (e.g., climate, soil properties etc) in regulating microbial diversity and ecosystem attributes. This lack of knowledge hampers our ability to predict microbial community shifts and their consequences for ecosystem functioning under climate change, and limits the inclusion of soil microbes in global biogeochemical models.
The main research objective of this action is to gain a deeper insight into the global patterns and mechanisms that drive soil microbial diversity and ecosystem processes under changing environments. We are using a novel conceptual framework combining multiple ecological predictors, climate change experiments and structural equation modelling to quantitatively evaluate the role of the multiple ecological drivers of microbial diversity and ecosystem processes. The research outlined in this proposal includes a range of state-of-the-art biochemical, molecular and genomic methods for the analysis of microbial communities and ecosystem processes that ensure the maximum utility and impact of our results. Altogether, CLIMIFUN will reveal the factors that control soil microbial diversity and key ecosystem processes (e.g., nutrient cycling) under changing environments. This work will thus address a key knowledge gap relevant to supporting increases in global demand for food and fiber over the next decades, and a research priority for H2020.
The main research objective of this action is to gain a deeper insight into the global patterns and mechanisms that drive soil microbial diversity and ecosystem processes under changing environments. We are using a novel conceptual framework combining multiple ecological predictors, climate change experiments and structural equation modelling to quantitatively evaluate the role of the multiple ecological drivers of microbial diversity and ecosystem processes. The research outlined in this proposal includes a range of state-of-the-art biochemical, molecular and genomic methods for the analysis of microbial communities and ecosystem processes that ensure the maximum utility and impact of our results. Altogether, CLIMIFUN will reveal the factors that control soil microbial diversity and key ecosystem processes (e.g., nutrient cycling) under changing environments. This work will thus address a key knowledge gap relevant to supporting increases in global demand for food and fiber over the next decades, and a research priority for H2020.