We need to produce food for a growing world population, with less pesticides and fertilizers on less agricultural land area.Micro-organisms that live on or in the roots of plants may help to solve these problems: they can stimulate seed germination, promote plant growth and offer protection against drought, pests and diseases. But which micro-organisms are most effective? And are microbial consortia more effective than ‘single’ microbes?Wild ancestors of crop plants and their microbial partners may hold the key to answering these questions. Compared to their cultivated crop relatives, they are thought to have a highermicrobial biodiversity and stronger microbial support functions that have co-evolved with their wild hosts.The aim of the BackToRoots research programme is to enhance plant growth and productivity by exploring, explaining and ultimately exploiting these 'ancestral' microbial communities. 

LTER-LIFE is a scientific infrastructure aimed at supporting shared and integrated ecological research – towards the building of digital twins of ecosystems. We do this in three ways: by bringing together geographically focused research communities; connecting people that do research on different aspects of the same ecosystem,by creating a portal to find (legacy) data, models, and tools relevant for these regional research communities; helping researchers to share and reuse, andby setting up a virtual research environment where these data, models and tools can be re-used and connected. In the virtual research environment, virtual laboratories will support reuse and co-development. By integrating the link to datasources and streams with state of the art modelling in a modular way, these LTER-LIFE virtual labs will allow for the building of digital twins of ecosystems. These digital twins can be used in support of scientific research and monitoring and will allow for scenario analysis. LTER-LIFE will initially focus on 2 of the most extensive and best-studied ecosystems in the Netherlands representing aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems: the Wadden Sea and the Veluwe. The infrastructure was founded in August 2023 and has obtained a 10-year grant from NWO to develop and implement the infrastructure. Project descriptionRead more detailed information about the project.NewsletterSign up for the LTER-LIFE newsletter and read our latest newsletter.LinkedInFollow our LinkedIn page to stay up to date with the latest news

LTER-NL stands for Long-term Ecosystem Research Network in the Netherlands. It is a national network of research sites engaged in long-term, site-based ecological, environmental and socio-ecological research. Currently LTER-NL consists of two Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research (LTSER) Platforms: the Dutch Wadden Sea and the Veluwe. In addition there is the LTSER-platform Scheldt Estuary, that is partly situated in the Netherlands and officially part of LTER Belgium.