Scientific concept

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RA 2: Plant Microbiota Metabolic Networks and Edaphic Adaptation

RA 1: Optimizing Plant Performance by Mapping the Interface between Development and Metabolism

RA 3: Synthetic and Reconstruction Biology

RA 4: Theoretical Plant Biology and Data Science

The aim of the Cluster is to gain a comprehensive understanding of the genetic coding of plant characteristics and how they are influenced by environmental factors. This will make it possible for the first time to predict which genetic characteristics of a plant (and its associated microbes) enable optimal performance under defined environmental conditions.

The Cluster thus addresses one of the most fundamental problems in biology (the relationship between genotype and phenotype) and lays the foundations for the development and breeding of new (crop) plants that can respond predictably to future environmental conditions.

Understanding the interaction between developmental biological processes and metabolism, which ultimately controls both the life cycle (annual or perennial) and adaptability to specific environmental conditions, and knowledge of the function of the microbiome, soil biology and chemistry are pressing issues in plant biology that are essential for the development of strategies for sustainable yield increase.