AEGIS 

Introduction:

The Ancient Environmental Genomics Initiative for Sustainability (AEGIS) is a global consortium led by the Globe Institute (University of Copenhagen) and is supported by the Novo Nordisk Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. The broad goal of AEGIS is to analyse ancient environmental DNA together with other biomolecular evidence from soils, sediments, ice, and oceans, to uncover how past ecosystems adapted to climate change, and to inform the development of climate-resilient crops and stronger biodiversity conservation for a warming planet. 

As part of this project we test whether ancient plant-microbe interactions provide better protection against heat and drought stress and improve nutrient use efficiency for low-input agriculture compared to contemporary interactions. Using ancient microbiome data from past ecosystems, we simulate ancient microbial communities and simulate novel microbiomes to test their impact on plant growth and ecosystem performance. 

Project team

Dr. Stefanie Lutz , University of Zurich and Agroscope

Dr. Fantin Mesny, University of Zurich and Agroscope

Giorgio Bolchi University of Zurich and Agroscope

Prof. Marcel van der Heijden, University of Zurich and Agroscope

Projectpartners

See Aegis website 

Contact

Dr. Stefanie Lutz

University of Zurich

Winterthurerstrasse 190

8057 Zürich

stefanie.lutz@uzh.ch