Project acronym ABEP
Project Asset Bubbles and Economic Policy
Researcher (PI) Jaume Ventura Fontanet
Host Institution (HI) Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI)
Country Spain
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH1, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary Advanced capitalist economies experience large and persistent movements in asset prices that are difficult to justify with economic fundamentals. The internet bubble of the 1990s and the real state market bubble of the 2000s are two recent examples. The predominant view is that these bubbles are a market failure, and are caused by some form of individual irrationality on the part of market participants. This project is based instead on the view that market participants are individually rational, although this does not preclude sometimes collectively sub-optimal outcomes. Bubbles are thus not a source of market failure by themselves but instead arise as a result of a pre-existing market failure, namely, the existence of pockets of dynamically inefficient investments. Under some conditions, bubbles partly solve this problem, increasing market efficiency and welfare. It is also possible however that bubbles do not solve the underlying problem and, in addition, create negative side-effects. The main objective of this project is to develop this view of asset bubbles, and produce an empirically-relevant macroeconomic framework that allows us to address the following questions: (i) What is the relationship between bubbles and financial market frictions? Special emphasis is given to how the globalization of financial markets and the development of new financial products affect the size and effects of bubbles. (ii) What is the relationship between bubbles, economic growth and unemployment? The theory suggests the presence of virtuous and vicious cycles, as economic growth creates the conditions for bubbles to pop up, while bubbles create incentives for economic growth to happen. (iii) What is the optimal policy to manage bubbles? We need to develop the tools that allow policy makers to sustain those bubbles that have positive effects and burst those that have negative effects.
Summary
Advanced capitalist economies experience large and persistent movements in asset prices that are difficult to justify with economic fundamentals. The internet bubble of the 1990s and the real state market bubble of the 2000s are two recent examples. The predominant view is that these bubbles are a market failure, and are caused by some form of individual irrationality on the part of market participants. This project is based instead on the view that market participants are individually rational, although this does not preclude sometimes collectively sub-optimal outcomes. Bubbles are thus not a source of market failure by themselves but instead arise as a result of a pre-existing market failure, namely, the existence of pockets of dynamically inefficient investments. Under some conditions, bubbles partly solve this problem, increasing market efficiency and welfare. It is also possible however that bubbles do not solve the underlying problem and, in addition, create negative side-effects. The main objective of this project is to develop this view of asset bubbles, and produce an empirically-relevant macroeconomic framework that allows us to address the following questions: (i) What is the relationship between bubbles and financial market frictions? Special emphasis is given to how the globalization of financial markets and the development of new financial products affect the size and effects of bubbles. (ii) What is the relationship between bubbles, economic growth and unemployment? The theory suggests the presence of virtuous and vicious cycles, as economic growth creates the conditions for bubbles to pop up, while bubbles create incentives for economic growth to happen. (iii) What is the optimal policy to manage bubbles? We need to develop the tools that allow policy makers to sustain those bubbles that have positive effects and burst those that have negative effects.
Max ERC Funding
1 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2015-03-31
Project acronym BRAINPOWER
Project Brain energy supply and the consequences of its failure
Researcher (PI) David Ian Attwell
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS5, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary Energy, supplied in the form of oxygen and glucose in the blood, is essential for the brain s cognitive power. Failure of the energy supply to the nervous system underlies the mental and physical disability occurring in a wide range of economically important neurological disorders, such as stroke, spinal cord injury and cerebral palsy. Using a combination of two-photon imaging, electrophysiological, molecular and transgenic approaches, I will investigate the control of brain energy supply at the vascular level, and at the level of individual neurons and glial cells, and study the deleterious consequences for the neurons, glia and vasculature of a failure of brain energy supply. The work will focus on the following fundamental issues: A. Vascular control of the brain energy supply (1) How important is control of energy supply at the capillary level, by pericytes? (2) Which synapses control blood flow (and thus generate functional imaging signals) in the cortex? B. Neuronal and glial control of brain energy supply (3) How is grey matter neuronal activity powered? (4) How is the white matter supplied with energy? C. The pathological consequences of a loss of brain energy supply (5) How does a fall of energy supply cause neurotoxic glutamate release? (6) How similar are events in the grey and white matter in energy deprivation conditions? (7) How does a transient loss of energy supply affect blood flow regulation? (8) How does brain energy use change after a period without energy supply? Together this work will significantly advance our understanding of how the energy supply to neurons and glia is regulated in normal conditions, and how the loss of the energy supply causes disorders which consume more than 5% of the costs of European health services (5% of ~1000 billion euro/year).
Summary
Energy, supplied in the form of oxygen and glucose in the blood, is essential for the brain s cognitive power. Failure of the energy supply to the nervous system underlies the mental and physical disability occurring in a wide range of economically important neurological disorders, such as stroke, spinal cord injury and cerebral palsy. Using a combination of two-photon imaging, electrophysiological, molecular and transgenic approaches, I will investigate the control of brain energy supply at the vascular level, and at the level of individual neurons and glial cells, and study the deleterious consequences for the neurons, glia and vasculature of a failure of brain energy supply. The work will focus on the following fundamental issues: A. Vascular control of the brain energy supply (1) How important is control of energy supply at the capillary level, by pericytes? (2) Which synapses control blood flow (and thus generate functional imaging signals) in the cortex? B. Neuronal and glial control of brain energy supply (3) How is grey matter neuronal activity powered? (4) How is the white matter supplied with energy? C. The pathological consequences of a loss of brain energy supply (5) How does a fall of energy supply cause neurotoxic glutamate release? (6) How similar are events in the grey and white matter in energy deprivation conditions? (7) How does a transient loss of energy supply affect blood flow regulation? (8) How does brain energy use change after a period without energy supply? Together this work will significantly advance our understanding of how the energy supply to neurons and glia is regulated in normal conditions, and how the loss of the energy supply causes disorders which consume more than 5% of the costs of European health services (5% of ~1000 billion euro/year).
Max ERC Funding
2 499 947 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2016-03-31
Project acronym CHROMOCOND
Project A molecular view of chromosome condensation
Researcher (PI) Frank Uhlmann
Host Institution (HI) CANCER RESEARCH UK LBG
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS3, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary Eukaryotic cells inherit much of their genomic information in the form of chromosomes during cell division. Centimetre-long DNA molecules are packed into micrometer-sized chromosomes to enable this process. How DNA is organised within mitotic chromosomes is still largely unknown. A key structural protein component of mitotic chromosomes, implicated in their compaction, is the condensin complex. In this proposal, we aim to elucidate the molecular architecture of mitotic chromosomes, taking advantage of new genomic techniques and the relatively simple genome organisation of yeast model systems. We will place particular emphasis on elucidating the contribution of the condensin complex, and the cell cycle regulation of its activities, in promoting chromosome condensation. Our previous work has provided genome-wide maps of condensin binding to budding and fission yeast chromosomes. We will continue to decipher the molecular determinants for condensin binding. To investigate how condensin mediates DNA compaction, we propose to generate chromosome-wide DNA/DNA proximity maps. Our approach will be an extension of the chromosome conformation capture (3C) technique. High throughput sequencing of interaction points has provided a first glimpse of the interactions that govern chromosome condensation. The role that condensin plays in promoting these interactions will be investigated. The contribution of condensin s ATP-dependent activities, and cell cycle-dependent post-translational modifications, will be studied. This will be complemented by mathematical modelling of the condensation process. In addition to chromosome condensation, condensin is required for resolution of sister chromatids in anaphase. We will develop an assay to study the catenation status of sister chromatids and how condensin may contribute to their topological resolution.
Summary
Eukaryotic cells inherit much of their genomic information in the form of chromosomes during cell division. Centimetre-long DNA molecules are packed into micrometer-sized chromosomes to enable this process. How DNA is organised within mitotic chromosomes is still largely unknown. A key structural protein component of mitotic chromosomes, implicated in their compaction, is the condensin complex. In this proposal, we aim to elucidate the molecular architecture of mitotic chromosomes, taking advantage of new genomic techniques and the relatively simple genome organisation of yeast model systems. We will place particular emphasis on elucidating the contribution of the condensin complex, and the cell cycle regulation of its activities, in promoting chromosome condensation. Our previous work has provided genome-wide maps of condensin binding to budding and fission yeast chromosomes. We will continue to decipher the molecular determinants for condensin binding. To investigate how condensin mediates DNA compaction, we propose to generate chromosome-wide DNA/DNA proximity maps. Our approach will be an extension of the chromosome conformation capture (3C) technique. High throughput sequencing of interaction points has provided a first glimpse of the interactions that govern chromosome condensation. The role that condensin plays in promoting these interactions will be investigated. The contribution of condensin s ATP-dependent activities, and cell cycle-dependent post-translational modifications, will be studied. This will be complemented by mathematical modelling of the condensation process. In addition to chromosome condensation, condensin is required for resolution of sister chromatids in anaphase. We will develop an assay to study the catenation status of sister chromatids and how condensin may contribute to their topological resolution.
Max ERC Funding
2 076 126 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-04-01, End date: 2015-03-31
Project acronym CULTRWORLD
Project The evolution of cultural norms in real world settings
Researcher (PI) Ruth Helen Mace
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary An intense debate is raging within evolutionary anthropology as to whether the evolution of human behaviour is driven by selection pressure on the individual or on the group. Until recently there was consensus amongst evolutionary biologists and evolutionary anthropologists that natural selection caused behaviours to evolve that benefit the individual or close kin. However the idea that cultural behaviours that favour the group can evolve, even at the expense of individual well-being, is now being supported by some evolutionary anthropologists and economists. Models of cultural group selection rely on patterns of cultural transmission that maintain differences between cultural groups, because either decisions are based on what most others in the group do, or non-conformists are punished in some way. If such biased transmission occurs, then humans may be following a unique evolutionary trajectory towards extreme sociality; such models potentially explain behaviours such as altruism towards non-relatives or limiting your reproductive rate. However, relevant empirical evidence from real world populations, concerning behaviour that potentially influences reproductive success, is almost entirely lacking. The projects proposed here are designed to help fill that gap. In micro-evolutionary studies we will seek evidence for the patterns cultural transmission or social learning that enable cultural group selection to act, and ask how these processes depend on properties of the community, and thus how robust are they to the demographic and societal changes that accompany modernisation. These include studies of the spread of modern contraception through communities; and studies of punishment of selfish players in economic games. In macro-evolutionary studies, we will use phylogenetic cross-cultural comparative methods to show how different cultural traits change over the long term, and ask whether social or ecological variables are driving that cultural change.
Summary
An intense debate is raging within evolutionary anthropology as to whether the evolution of human behaviour is driven by selection pressure on the individual or on the group. Until recently there was consensus amongst evolutionary biologists and evolutionary anthropologists that natural selection caused behaviours to evolve that benefit the individual or close kin. However the idea that cultural behaviours that favour the group can evolve, even at the expense of individual well-being, is now being supported by some evolutionary anthropologists and economists. Models of cultural group selection rely on patterns of cultural transmission that maintain differences between cultural groups, because either decisions are based on what most others in the group do, or non-conformists are punished in some way. If such biased transmission occurs, then humans may be following a unique evolutionary trajectory towards extreme sociality; such models potentially explain behaviours such as altruism towards non-relatives or limiting your reproductive rate. However, relevant empirical evidence from real world populations, concerning behaviour that potentially influences reproductive success, is almost entirely lacking. The projects proposed here are designed to help fill that gap. In micro-evolutionary studies we will seek evidence for the patterns cultural transmission or social learning that enable cultural group selection to act, and ask how these processes depend on properties of the community, and thus how robust are they to the demographic and societal changes that accompany modernisation. These include studies of the spread of modern contraception through communities; and studies of punishment of selfish players in economic games. In macro-evolutionary studies, we will use phylogenetic cross-cultural comparative methods to show how different cultural traits change over the long term, and ask whether social or ecological variables are driving that cultural change.
Max ERC Funding
1 801 978 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-05-01, End date: 2016-04-30
Project acronym DARCGENS
Project Derived and Ancestral RNAs: Comparative Genomics and Evolution of ncRNAs
Researcher (PI) Christopher Paul Ponting
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS2, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary Much light has been shed on the number, mechanisms and functions of protein-coding genes in the human genome. In comparison, we know almost nothing about the origins and mechanisms of the functional dark matter , including sequence that is transcribed outside of protein-coding gene loci. This interdisciplinary proposal will capitalize on new theoretical and experimental opportunities to establish the extent by which long non-coding RNAs contribute to mammalian and fruit fly biology. Since 2001, the Ponting group has pioneered the comparative analysis of protein-coding genes across the amniotes and Drosophilids within many international genome sequencing consortia. This Advanced Grant will break new ground by applying these approaches to long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) genes from mammals to birds and to flies. The Grant will allow Ponting to free himself of the constraints normally associated with in silico analyses by analysing lincRNAs in vitro and in vivo. The integration of computational and experimental approaches for lincRNAs from across the metazoan tree provides a powerful new toolkit for elucidating the origins and biological roles of these enigmatic molecules. Catalogues of lincRNA loci will be built for human, mouse, fruit fly, zebrafinch, chicken and Aplysia by exploiting data from next-generation sequencing technologies. This will immediately provide a new perspective on how these loci arise, evolve and function, including whether their orthologues are apparent across diverse species. Using new evidence that lincRNA loci act in cis with neighbouring protein-coding loci, we will determine lincRNA mechanisms and will establish the consequences of lincRNA knock-down, knock-out and over-expression in mouse, chick and fruitfly.
Summary
Much light has been shed on the number, mechanisms and functions of protein-coding genes in the human genome. In comparison, we know almost nothing about the origins and mechanisms of the functional dark matter , including sequence that is transcribed outside of protein-coding gene loci. This interdisciplinary proposal will capitalize on new theoretical and experimental opportunities to establish the extent by which long non-coding RNAs contribute to mammalian and fruit fly biology. Since 2001, the Ponting group has pioneered the comparative analysis of protein-coding genes across the amniotes and Drosophilids within many international genome sequencing consortia. This Advanced Grant will break new ground by applying these approaches to long intergenic non-coding RNA (lincRNA) genes from mammals to birds and to flies. The Grant will allow Ponting to free himself of the constraints normally associated with in silico analyses by analysing lincRNAs in vitro and in vivo. The integration of computational and experimental approaches for lincRNAs from across the metazoan tree provides a powerful new toolkit for elucidating the origins and biological roles of these enigmatic molecules. Catalogues of lincRNA loci will be built for human, mouse, fruit fly, zebrafinch, chicken and Aplysia by exploiting data from next-generation sequencing technologies. This will immediately provide a new perspective on how these loci arise, evolve and function, including whether their orthologues are apparent across diverse species. Using new evidence that lincRNA loci act in cis with neighbouring protein-coding loci, we will determine lincRNA mechanisms and will establish the consequences of lincRNA knock-down, knock-out and over-expression in mouse, chick and fruitfly.
Max ERC Funding
2 400 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-05-01, End date: 2015-04-30
Project acronym DENDRITE
Project Cellular and circuit determinants of dendritic computation
Researcher (PI) Michael Andreas Hausser
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS5, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary What is the fundamental unit of computation in the brain? Answering this question is crucial not only for understanding how the brain works, but also for building accurate models of brain function, which require abstraction based on identification of the essential elements for carrying out computations relevant to behaviour. We will directly test the possibility that single dendritic branches may act as individual computational units during behaviour, challenging the classical view that the neuron is the fundamental unit of computation. We will address this question using a combination of electrophysiological, anatomical, imaging, molecular, and modeling approaches to probe dendritic integration in pyramidal cells and Purkinje cells in mouse cortex and cerebellum. We will define the computational rules for integration of synaptic input in dendrites by examining the responses to different spatiotemporal patterns of excitatory and inhibitory inputs. We will use computational modeling to extract simple rules describing dendritic integration that captures the essence of the computation. Next, we will determine how these rules are engaged by patterns of sensory stimulation in vivo, by using various strategies to map the spatiotemporal patterns of synaptic inputs to dendrites. To understand how physiological patterns of activity in the circuit engage these dendritic computations, we will use anatomical approaches to map the wiring diagram of synaptic inputs to individual dendrites. Finally, we will manipulate dendritic function using molecular tools, in order to provide causal links between specific dendritic computations and sensory processing. These experiments will provide us with deeper insights into how single neurons act as computing devices, and how fundamental computations that drive behaviour are implemented on the level of single cells and neural circuits.
Summary
What is the fundamental unit of computation in the brain? Answering this question is crucial not only for understanding how the brain works, but also for building accurate models of brain function, which require abstraction based on identification of the essential elements for carrying out computations relevant to behaviour. We will directly test the possibility that single dendritic branches may act as individual computational units during behaviour, challenging the classical view that the neuron is the fundamental unit of computation. We will address this question using a combination of electrophysiological, anatomical, imaging, molecular, and modeling approaches to probe dendritic integration in pyramidal cells and Purkinje cells in mouse cortex and cerebellum. We will define the computational rules for integration of synaptic input in dendrites by examining the responses to different spatiotemporal patterns of excitatory and inhibitory inputs. We will use computational modeling to extract simple rules describing dendritic integration that captures the essence of the computation. Next, we will determine how these rules are engaged by patterns of sensory stimulation in vivo, by using various strategies to map the spatiotemporal patterns of synaptic inputs to dendrites. To understand how physiological patterns of activity in the circuit engage these dendritic computations, we will use anatomical approaches to map the wiring diagram of synaptic inputs to individual dendrites. Finally, we will manipulate dendritic function using molecular tools, in order to provide causal links between specific dendritic computations and sensory processing. These experiments will provide us with deeper insights into how single neurons act as computing devices, and how fundamental computations that drive behaviour are implemented on the level of single cells and neural circuits.
Max ERC Funding
2 416 078 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-06-01, End date: 2016-05-31
Project acronym Ethno-ISS
Project ETHNO-ISS: An Ethnography of an Extra-terrestrial Society: the International Space Station
Researcher (PI) Victor BUCHLI
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary The International Space Station (ISS) is arguably the oldest extra-terrestrial society in low earth orbit. To date this radical new form of human habitation and society has not been the object of systematic and comparative ethnographic inquiry. This project aims to correct this and proposes a comparative and multi-sited ethnography of the ISS among the contributors to its modular architecture: The Russian Federation, The United States of America, The European Union and Japan. The ISS offers invaluable insights into fundamental questions at the heart of the social sciences. The most obvious is the effect of micro gravity on our understandings of material culture and sociality. To date material culture has only been theorised in terms of Earth’s gravity. This project affords the opportunity to critically re-examine our terrestrially based theories. Related to this are the distinctive political aesthetics in this setting and its innovative dimensions of ‘worlding’ (Heidegger) and the materialities entailed therein. These relate to wider notions: the nature of transcendence in both anthropological, material and metaphysical terms as well as broader issues concerning territoriality and the expansion of the human and habitability and general understandings of materiality. Methodologically the project focuses on the quotidian and material dimensions of the ISS and its bodily and material techniques, re-examining traditional empirical assumptions within the innovative conditions of the new polymedia environments in which the ISS is situated. More importantly the project situates the respective Mission Controls and their wider communities as co-terminous with the ISS site, examining it as highly complex nexus of inhabitation encompassing both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial realms in a novel configuration and thereby provide the first ever integrative and comparative study of this unprecedented form of human society and the material conditions of its emergent ‘worlding’.
Summary
The International Space Station (ISS) is arguably the oldest extra-terrestrial society in low earth orbit. To date this radical new form of human habitation and society has not been the object of systematic and comparative ethnographic inquiry. This project aims to correct this and proposes a comparative and multi-sited ethnography of the ISS among the contributors to its modular architecture: The Russian Federation, The United States of America, The European Union and Japan. The ISS offers invaluable insights into fundamental questions at the heart of the social sciences. The most obvious is the effect of micro gravity on our understandings of material culture and sociality. To date material culture has only been theorised in terms of Earth’s gravity. This project affords the opportunity to critically re-examine our terrestrially based theories. Related to this are the distinctive political aesthetics in this setting and its innovative dimensions of ‘worlding’ (Heidegger) and the materialities entailed therein. These relate to wider notions: the nature of transcendence in both anthropological, material and metaphysical terms as well as broader issues concerning territoriality and the expansion of the human and habitability and general understandings of materiality. Methodologically the project focuses on the quotidian and material dimensions of the ISS and its bodily and material techniques, re-examining traditional empirical assumptions within the innovative conditions of the new polymedia environments in which the ISS is situated. More importantly the project situates the respective Mission Controls and their wider communities as co-terminous with the ISS site, examining it as highly complex nexus of inhabitation encompassing both terrestrial and extra-terrestrial realms in a novel configuration and thereby provide the first ever integrative and comparative study of this unprecedented form of human society and the material conditions of its emergent ‘worlding’.
Max ERC Funding
2 475 251 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-10-01, End date: 2025-03-31
Project acronym EUROEVOL
Project Cultural Evolution of Neolithic Europe
Researcher (PI) Stephen Shennan
Host Institution (HI) University College London
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary The last 30 years have seen the rapid emergence and growth of a new high-profile interdisciplinary field, the study of cultural evolution, which has produced novel ways of understanding human cultural and socio-economic behaviour. In particular, it has produced mathematical models derived from evolutionary biology demonstrating the importance of culture and history in understanding human cultures and societies, while at the same time taking into account the adaptive dimension. The field has seen a great deal of theoretical development and some empirical work, not least by myself and colleagues at the UCL AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity and its predecessor. However, there has been no substantive attempt to bring the different sub-fields of cultural evolutionary theory and method together in an integrated fashion and apply them to large-scale case-studies in history or prehistory to address specific questions concerning the links between demographic, economic, social and cultural patterns and processes. The aim of this proposal is to do that for the first time and in doing so to provide the basis for a new account of the role of farming in transforming early European farming societies, c.6000-2000 calBC, focussing on the western half of Europe, where the available data are best. The project will have a major impact on the field of cultural evolution by providing a model example for cultural evolutionary studies of early societies in other parts of the world. It will also provide important new insights into the history of European society and give a significant impetus to re-orienting the disciplinary field of archaeology, making it part of the broader inter-disciplinary endeavour of evolutionary social science, as other researchers follow its example.
Summary
The last 30 years have seen the rapid emergence and growth of a new high-profile interdisciplinary field, the study of cultural evolution, which has produced novel ways of understanding human cultural and socio-economic behaviour. In particular, it has produced mathematical models derived from evolutionary biology demonstrating the importance of culture and history in understanding human cultures and societies, while at the same time taking into account the adaptive dimension. The field has seen a great deal of theoretical development and some empirical work, not least by myself and colleagues at the UCL AHRC Centre for the Evolution of Cultural Diversity and its predecessor. However, there has been no substantive attempt to bring the different sub-fields of cultural evolutionary theory and method together in an integrated fashion and apply them to large-scale case-studies in history or prehistory to address specific questions concerning the links between demographic, economic, social and cultural patterns and processes. The aim of this proposal is to do that for the first time and in doing so to provide the basis for a new account of the role of farming in transforming early European farming societies, c.6000-2000 calBC, focussing on the western half of Europe, where the available data are best. The project will have a major impact on the field of cultural evolution by providing a model example for cultural evolutionary studies of early societies in other parts of the world. It will also provide important new insights into the history of European society and give a significant impetus to re-orienting the disciplinary field of archaeology, making it part of the broader inter-disciplinary endeavour of evolutionary social science, as other researchers follow its example.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-05-01, End date: 2015-04-30
Project acronym EVO500
Project Origin of a cell differentiation mechanism and its evolution over 500 million years of life on land
Researcher (PI) Liam Dolan
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR, MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF OXFORD
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), LS3, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary The evolution of the first rooting systems approximately 470 million years ago was a critical event in the history of life on Earth because it allowed the growth of complex multicellular eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms – plants - on the surface of the land. Rooting systems are important because they facilitate the uptake of every chemical element in the plant body with the exception of carbon. The root systems of the
first land plants (liverworts) comprised a mass of unicellular tip-growing filaments (rhizoids) that grew from the plant surface into the soil. All root systems that evolved since then similarly comprise a system of tipgrowing filamentous cells located at the interface between the plant and the soil, indicating that the differentiation of filamentous root cells has been critical for root function for the past 470 million years. This proposal aims to characterize the origin and evolution of this essential cellular differentiation process. The proposed research is in three parts:
First we propose to define the mechanism that controlled the development of the first land plant root system by identifying genes that control liverwort rooting system (rhizoids) development and
characterizing their regulatory interactions.
Second we propose to determine if the mechanism that controlled the development of the first land
plant root system was inherited from algal ancestors.
Third we propose to characterize the mechanism that controls filamentous root hair growth in
Arabidopsis in response to environmental factors, and determine if it is conserved among land
plants.
In combination, these experiments will define the genetic mechanisms underpinning the development and evolution of one of the fundamental developmental processes in land plants.
Summary
The evolution of the first rooting systems approximately 470 million years ago was a critical event in the history of life on Earth because it allowed the growth of complex multicellular eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms – plants - on the surface of the land. Rooting systems are important because they facilitate the uptake of every chemical element in the plant body with the exception of carbon. The root systems of the
first land plants (liverworts) comprised a mass of unicellular tip-growing filaments (rhizoids) that grew from the plant surface into the soil. All root systems that evolved since then similarly comprise a system of tipgrowing filamentous cells located at the interface between the plant and the soil, indicating that the differentiation of filamentous root cells has been critical for root function for the past 470 million years. This proposal aims to characterize the origin and evolution of this essential cellular differentiation process. The proposed research is in three parts:
First we propose to define the mechanism that controlled the development of the first land plant root system by identifying genes that control liverwort rooting system (rhizoids) development and
characterizing their regulatory interactions.
Second we propose to determine if the mechanism that controlled the development of the first land
plant root system was inherited from algal ancestors.
Third we propose to characterize the mechanism that controls filamentous root hair growth in
Arabidopsis in response to environmental factors, and determine if it is conserved among land
plants.
In combination, these experiments will define the genetic mechanisms underpinning the development and evolution of one of the fundamental developmental processes in land plants.
Max ERC Funding
2 463 835 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-10-01, End date: 2015-09-30
Project acronym FOGLIP
Project Food Globalisation in Prehistory
Researcher (PI) Martin Jones
Host Institution (HI) THE CHANCELLOR MASTERS AND SCHOLARS OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
Country United Kingdom
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2009-AdG
Summary Each of today s major food species is distributed worldwide. While much of that food globalisation has resulted from modern trade networks, it has its roots in prehistory. By the end of the second millennium BC, the south west Asian crops, wheat and barley, were in several parts of China, and Chinese millets and buckwheat were in Europe. There was a parallel exchange of crops between South Asia and Africa. A series of later episodes of globalisation involve exotic fruits, vegetables and flavourings. This earlier phase would appear to involve instead staple starchy crops. Moreover, the movement of these starchy crops seems to precede other forms of evidence for cross-continental contact, such as is reflected in artefacts. What prompted this early globalisation of starch crops? How did it relate to the way in which humans societies were changing, and to the development and evolution of the crops themselves? These are questions I shall address through an archaeogenetic approach, which will modern methods of bio-archaeology and crop genetics. The focus of my bio-archaeological research will be selected sites in West China and Kazakhstan, chosen to complement ongoing research elsewhere (by a number of different groups) and to fill a critical geographical gap in the growing bio-archaeological record of Eurasia. For my genetic analyses I shall target upon two crops, one whose movement in prehistory was from west to east, the other form east to west. Of the various crops that moved in this way, I have chosen barley and foxtail millet chosen on the basis of i) their archaeological record of domestication and spread; ii) their genetic suitability for study, and iii) the timeliness of studying them in relation to contemporary research around the world today.
Summary
Each of today s major food species is distributed worldwide. While much of that food globalisation has resulted from modern trade networks, it has its roots in prehistory. By the end of the second millennium BC, the south west Asian crops, wheat and barley, were in several parts of China, and Chinese millets and buckwheat were in Europe. There was a parallel exchange of crops between South Asia and Africa. A series of later episodes of globalisation involve exotic fruits, vegetables and flavourings. This earlier phase would appear to involve instead staple starchy crops. Moreover, the movement of these starchy crops seems to precede other forms of evidence for cross-continental contact, such as is reflected in artefacts. What prompted this early globalisation of starch crops? How did it relate to the way in which humans societies were changing, and to the development and evolution of the crops themselves? These are questions I shall address through an archaeogenetic approach, which will modern methods of bio-archaeology and crop genetics. The focus of my bio-archaeological research will be selected sites in West China and Kazakhstan, chosen to complement ongoing research elsewhere (by a number of different groups) and to fill a critical geographical gap in the growing bio-archaeological record of Eurasia. For my genetic analyses I shall target upon two crops, one whose movement in prehistory was from west to east, the other form east to west. Of the various crops that moved in this way, I have chosen barley and foxtail millet chosen on the basis of i) their archaeological record of domestication and spread; ii) their genetic suitability for study, and iii) the timeliness of studying them in relation to contemporary research around the world today.
Max ERC Funding
1 979 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-05-01, End date: 2015-10-31
