ERC FUNDED PROJECTS

The Anthropocene, the current geological epoch, is characterised by human-induced ecological changes, which have prompted a global biodiversity crisis. Human-introduced alien plants could help to offset native species loss, augmenting diversity and maintaining the services and capital that humans derive from nature. However, alien species that become invasive are themselves a key threat to biodiversity. Alien species thus presents a huge challenge for biodiversity conservation in the Anthropocene: should their arrival and establishment be inhibited or disregarded as they can potentially both exacerbate and ameliorate biodiversity loss? Coupling empirical and theoretical approaches, ALIENIMPACTS will directly address this challenge by developing an approach for accurately predicting impacts of alien plant invasions on plant community diversity and identifying the circumstances under which negative impacts will occur. Using temperate grasslands as a model system, ALIENIMPACTS will use innovative field experiments and global observations to systematically quantify – for the first time – how often, for how long, to what extent, under what conditions and in what ways alien plants can impact plant community diversity. ALIENIMPACTS will develop mechanistic niche models, validated with empirical data from grasslands in North America, Europe and Australia, that will enable realistic scenarios of invasion biodiversity impacts to be forecast, now and in the future. Developing empirically accurate mechanistic models that predict invasions and their biodiversity impact is a highly ambitious goal. Its achievement will mark a step-change in ecological theory and understanding, will inform environmental policy and management, and address a critical research challenge of the Anthropocene: how to conserve the biodiversity of plants – the dominant life form on earth – under global environmental change.

1 999 997 €

Start date: 2021-04-01, End date: 2026-03-31

Our ability to predict adaptation and the response of populations to selection is limited. Solving this issue is a fundamental challenge of evolutionary ecology with implications for applied sciences such as conservation, and agronomy. Non genetic inheritance (NGI; e.g., ecological niche transmission) is suspected to play a foremost role in adaptive evolution but such hypothesis remains untested. Using quantitative genetics in wild plant populations, experimental evolution, and epigenetics, we will assess the role of NGI in the adaptive response to selection of plant populations. The ANGI project will follow the subsequent research program: (1) Using long-term survey data, we will measure natural selection in wild populations of Antirrhinum majus within its heterogeneous array of micro-habitats. We will calculate the fitness gain provided by multiple traits and stem elongation to plants growing in bushes where they compete for light. Stem elongation is known to depend on epigenetic variation. (2) Using a statistical approach that we developed, we will estimate the quantitative genetic and non genetic heritability of traits. (3) We will identify phenotypic changes caused by fitness that are based on genetic variation and NGI and assess their respective roles in adaptive evolution. (4) In controlled conditions, we will artificially select for increased stem elongation in clonal lineages, thereby excluding DNA variation. We will quantify the non genetic response to selection and test for a quantitative epigenetic signature of selection. (5) We will build on our results to generate an inclusive theory of genetic and non genetic natural selection. ANGI builds on a confirmed expertise in selection experiments, quantitative genetics and NGI. In addition, the availability of survey data provides a solid foundation for the achievement of this project. Our ambition is to shed light on original mechanisms underlying adaptation that are an alternative to genetic selection.

1 999 970 €

Start date: 2016-03-01, End date: 2022-02-28

Cognition improves an animal’s ability to tune its responses to environmental conditions. In group living animals, communication works to form a collective cognition that expands the group’s abilities beyond those of individuals. Despite much research, to date, there is little understanding of how collective cognition emerges within biological ensembles. A major obstacle towards such an understanding is the rarity of comprehensive multi-scale empirical data of these complex systems. We have demonstrated cooperative load transport by ants to be an ideal system to study the emergence of cognition. Similar to other complex cognitive systems, the ants employ high levels of emergence to achieve efficient problem solving over a large range of scenarios. Unique to this system, is its extreme amenability to experimental measurement and manipulation where internal conflicts map to forces, abstract decision making is reflected in direction changes, and future planning manifested in pheromone trails. This allows for an unprecedentedly detailed, multi-scale empirical description of the moment-to-moment unfolding of sophisticated cognitive processes. This proposal is aimed at materializing this potential to the full. We will examine the ants’ problem solving capabilities under a variety of environmental challenges. We will expose the underpinning rules on the different organizational scales, the flow of information between them, and their relative contributions to collective performance. This will allow for empirical comparisons between the ‘group’ and the ‘sum of its parts’ from which we will quantify the level of emergence in this system. Using the language of information, we will map the boundaries of this group’s collective cognition and relate them to the range of habitable environmental niches. Moreover, we will generalize these insights to formulate a new paradigm of emergence in biological groups opening new horizons in the study of cognitive processes in general.

2 000 000 €

Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31

During the course of eukaryote evolution, photosynthesis was propagated from primary eukaryotic algae to non-photosynthetic organisms through multiple secondary endosymbiotic events. Collectively referred to as “secondary algae”, these photosynthetic organisms account for only 1-2% of the total global biomass, but produce a far larger part of the global annual fixation of carbon on Earth. ATP is the universal chemical energy carrier in living cells. In photosynthetic eukaryotes, it is produced by two major cellular processes: photosynthesis and respiration taking place in chloroplasts and mitochondria, respectively. Both processes support the production of biomass and govern gas (O2 and CO2) exchanges. On the other hand, anaerobic fermentative enzymes have also been identified in several primary and secondary algae. The regulation modes and interactions of respiration, photosynthesis and fermentation are fairly well understood in primary green algae. Conversely, the complex evolutionary history of secondary algae implies a great variety of original regulatory mechanisms that have been barely investigated to date. Over the last years my laboratory has developed and optimized a range of multidisciplinary approaches that now allow us, within the frame of the BEAL (BioEnergetics in microALgae) project, to (i) characterize and compare the photosynthetic regulation modes by biophysical approaches, (ii) use genetic and biochemical approaches to gain fundamental knowledge on aerobic respiration and anaerobic fermentative pathways, and (iii) investigate and compare interconnections between respiration, photosynthesis, and fermentation in organisms resulting from distinct evolutionary scenarios. On a long term, these developments will be instrumental to unravel bioenergetics constraints on growth in microalgae, a required knowledge to exploit the microalgal diversity in a biotechnological perspective, and to understand the complexity of the marine phytoplankton.

1 837 625 €

Start date: 2016-06-01, End date: 2021-11-30