Leonie Luginbuehl from the Department of Plant Sciences is one of nine Cambridge researchers to receive a prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant in the latest round.
The grant will support her research on harnessing mechanisms for plant carbon delivery to symbiotic soil fungi for sustainable food production.
Dr Luginbuehl, head of the Plant Physiology and Symbiosis group, said “I am thrilled to have received funding from the ERC, which allows me to focus on an exciting and fundamental biological question in the field of plant-fungal symbioses and explore how we could optimise nutrient exchange between plants and beneficial soil fungi to improve sustainability in agriculture.”
About the project
Like the gut microbiome of humans, plants associate with millions of microbes that live on or inside plant tissues such as leaves and roots. Most plants, including important crops such as rice, can establish a symbiosis with arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi.
These fungi provide key benefits to plants by taking up essential mineral nutrients from the soil and delivering them to plant roots. In return for these nutrients, plants supply the fungi with huge amounts of fixed carbon from photosynthesis.
Every year, one gigaton of carbon is drawn down from the atmosphere by plants and transferred to the fungal hyphae – thin fungal thread-like structures – in the soil. This corresponds to more than 10% of global carbon emissions caused by fossil fuels.
One important question that we don’t currently understand is how plants control the amount of carbon that is delivered to their fungal partner.
Dr Luginbuehl’s ERC project, called ‘maxSYMize’, addresses this key question with the aim to exploit the mechanisms underpinning carbon allocation to maximize carbon transfer from plants to the fungal network in the soil.
This approach could promote the symbiotic association in crops by enhancing fungal growth. In return, this could also increase nutrient uptake from the soil, which has the potential to reduce the need for costly and environmentally damaging fertilizer.
About ERC Starting Grants
ERC Starting Grants – totalling nearly €780 million – support cutting-edge research in a wide range of fields, from life sciences and physics to social sciences and humanities.
The awards help researchers at the beginning of their careers to launch their own projects, form their teams and pursue their most promising ideas. Starting Grants amount to €1.5 million per grant for a period of five years but additional funds can be made available.
Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth, said “The European Commission is proud to support the curiosity and passion of our early-career talent under our Horizon Europe programme. The new ERC Starting Grants winners aim to deepen our understanding of the world. Their creativity is vital to finding solutions to some of the most pressing societal challenges. In this call, I am happy to see one of the highest shares of female grantees to date, a trend that I hope will continue. Congratulations to all!”
Read more: Early Career Researchers win major European funding
Photo: Leonie Luginbuehl outside the Department of Plant Sciences, Cambridge.