ARAMIS | Adaptive Radiation in Aquatic MIcrobial Species

Summary
Adaptive Radiation of Aquatic MIcrobial Species (ARAMIS).

The action aims to understand the causes, mechanisms and consequences of adaptive radiation (i.e. the process in which organisms diversify rapidly to occupy ecological niches) in freshwater microbial communities. This will help solve several of the outstanding questions in the field of microbial ecology, such as how shifts in environmental conditions impact the trajectory of microbial evolution, the relative importance of horizontal versus vertical gene transfer in microbial ecosystems, or the definition of microbial ‘species’. As diversity is linked with stability, elucidating the factors driving diversification in freshwater taxa will also help us predict how such ecosystems may respond to future change.

ARAMIS proposes the novel hypothesis that, while every freshwater clade has a unique evolutionary history, the environmental forces driving such evolution are fundamentally the same, both in nature and in relative importance. If validated, this simple paradigm would push the state of the art and allow the development of powerful conceptual models integrating environmental constraints, microbial diversification, and community stability.

The hypothesis will be tested by combining metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and enrichment cultures over a set of more than 200 lake samples. This will contribute to a conceptual synthesis between community ecology and evolutionary biology by closing the gap between theoretical work and data-driven studies. ARAMIS has a high academic potential but, since it deals with the stability of freswater microbial populations, can also have social and public policy impact by bringing an ecoevolutionary perspective to the management of aquatic resources.
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More information & hyperlinks
Web resources: https://cordis.europa.eu/project/id/892961
Start date: 01-03-2021
End date: 30-04-2023
Total budget - Public funding: 203 852,16 Euro - 203 852,00 Euro
Cordis data

Original description

Adaptive Radiation of Aquatic MIcrobial Species (ARAMIS).

The action aims to understand the causes, mechanisms and consequences of adaptive radiation (i.e. the process in which organisms diversify rapidly to occupy ecological niches) in freshwater microbial communities. This will help solve several of the outstanding questions in the field of microbial ecology, such as how shifts in environmental conditions impact the trajectory of microbial evolution, the relative importance of horizontal versus vertical gene transfer in microbial ecosystems, or the definition of microbial ‘species’. As diversity is linked with stability, elucidating the factors driving diversification in freshwater taxa will also help us predict how such ecosystems may respond to future change.

ARAMIS proposes the novel hypothesis that, while every freshwater clade has a unique evolutionary history, the environmental forces driving such evolution are fundamentally the same, both in nature and in relative importance. If validated, this simple paradigm would push the state of the art and allow the development of powerful conceptual models integrating environmental constraints, microbial diversification, and community stability.

The hypothesis will be tested by combining metagenomics, metatranscriptomics and enrichment cultures over a set of more than 200 lake samples. This will contribute to a conceptual synthesis between community ecology and evolutionary biology by closing the gap between theoretical work and data-driven studies. ARAMIS has a high academic potential but, since it deals with the stability of freswater microbial populations, can also have social and public policy impact by bringing an ecoevolutionary perspective to the management of aquatic resources.

Status

CLOSED

Call topic

MSCA-IF-2019

Update Date

28-04-2024
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Horizon 2020
H2020-EU.1. EXCELLENT SCIENCE
H2020-EU.1.3. EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
H2020-EU.1.3.2. Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
H2020-MSCA-IF-2019
MSCA-IF-2019