DISPMIC · Dispersal limitation and colonization of new land by symbiotic microorganisms
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2016-09-01 → 2018-08-31
- EU contribution
- €212,195
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Dispersal limitation and colonization of new land by symbiotic microorganisms
The study of how biological communities assemble and maintain themselves is one of the key questions in ecology. In view of the global biodiversity crisis and the species movements that are being recorded as a response to climate change, the study of how dispersal of species shape communities is more relevant than ever to evaluate potential impacts of global change in biodiversity. Particularly, due to the fast change in climate conditions, we must know if the dispersal of species is fast enough to allow them to reach new location to avoid extinction. In other words, we must disentangle whether dispersal of key biological groups is limited or not. In the specific case of the plant-symbiont arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungi, the lack of knowledge on the processes that determine their communities and the impact of potential dispersal limitation is joined to the importance that this fungal group has for plant establishment and growth. The aim of this project has been the disentangling of the nature of ecological processes that shape species composition in AM fungal communities. The classical deterministic view, in which species composition is driven by environmental factors, has been faced in the last decades by theories pointing out towards community assemblies shaped by random factors. Dispersal, if limited or not, plays an important role in configurating communities either in a random or a deterministic way, respectively.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Understanding how biological communities assembles and maintains is continuously one of the key questions in ecology and, in view of the global biodiversity crisis, now more relevant than ever. Novel trait-based approaches are key tools to explain processes that lead species to coexist. The advantage of this new theoretical framework is the use of functional characteristics of species, instead of a mere species abundance accounting, to describe the emerging ecosystem properties. However, contrary to the wide use in plant ecology, its use in microbial ecology is very scarce. The objective of the proposed project is to apply a trait-based approach in combination with molecular techniques to trace the nature of ecological processes governing dispersal and establishment of arbuscular mycorrhizal (AM) fungal communities, the most common and widespread plant symbionts. This fungal group plays an important role in ecosystems and is commonly used as model organisms in ecological studies.Natural newly emerged island systems in the coast of Denmark provide a unique temporal and isolation gradient, yet hitherto unexploited, to explore such ecological processes. Using the combined molecular and trait-based characterization of AM fungal communities, we will infer whether stochastic, i.e. random, or deterministic ecological processes are driving the fungal community assembly during dispersal and the subsequent succession. Answering these questions will be very valuable inputs into both basic ecological sciences due to the novelty of the theoretical and practical approach as well as for applied conservation biology. Getting knowledge on dispersal and establishment of organisms is crucial to infer ecological consequences of the Global Change, for example regarding the migration of species.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNCoordinatorDenmark
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union