Göttingen University Takes Lead in Coordinating Next Stage of DFG Priority Programme MAdland
The German Research Foundation (DFG) has confirmed the second funding period for the Priority Programme “MAdLand – Molecular Adaptation to Land: plant evolution to change”. The research project will be coordinated by the University of Göttingen with funding of more than seven million euros over the next three years. Before the dawn of plants on land, the surface of our planet was covered by microscopic life. Plant terrestrialization changed this, giving rise to all the flora we see around us. Yet, this was an enormous undertaking as land is a challenging environment. “MAdLand” investigates how plants have adapted to severe changes in their environment to find ways to inform and support life now.
In this collaborative network of 26 projects across 20 different sites across Germany, the major impetus for the next stage is the investigation and reconstruction of the last common ancestors of all land plants, as well as those shared by land plants and their algal relatives. When the first plants settled on land about 500 million years ago, they were confronted with a challenging environment: they had to survive water scarcity that led to dehydration and even desiccation, unfiltered solar radiation, rapid shifts in temperature, and much more. But they prevailed. Their success on land caused a dramatic transformation in the Earth’s atmosphere and surface – priming the Earth for life as we know it now.
From these common ancestors, plants evolved into an extraordinarily diverse group of organisms exhibiting an abundance of adaptations to very different habitats – any plant you can see with the naked eye, be it a tiny moss or a towering tree, had its origin in this plant terrestrialization event. Without green plants on land, there would be no land animals today, and of course no people. “Our aim is to consolidate the many types of data we collect in order to infer the biology of organisms that lived hundreds of millions of years ago. Focussing on certain traits will help us to understand how plants evolved to overcome the challenges of the environment,” explains Professor Jan de Vries, University of Göttingen, who is coordinating the second tranche of DFG funding.
During its first funding period, coordinated by the University of Marburg, MAdland’s research identified important genetic mechanisms in the adaptive evolution of plant morphology, physiology, biochemistry and cell biology, as well as interactions between living organisms. In addition, the researchers made major contributions to publicly available data resources for plant biology, generating a wealth of resources for the whole research community. De Vries adds: “Most importantly, researchers in and close to the consortium have shone a light on the ancestry of processes from which the diversity of land plants evolved. Now, in the second phase, we want to build on this information, whilst exploring novel avenues, culminating in a concise synthesis of what transpired more than 500 million years ago.”