Is moss the boss?

VOLT’s Kathrin Rousk just got over 3 million DKK from DFF (Danmarks Frie Forskningsfond) for an exciting new project that will look into the interactions between moss and cyanobacteria.
You can read the official summary of the project titled “Is moss the boss? Deciphering the war and peace between moss and colonizing cyanobacteria” here. 

It all started with “so, what is your research on?” over coffee, and now we have a grant for 2.5 years.

We sat down with Kathrin to know how this project came about.
“In our department there are a few Clusters that promote collaboration between sections. In one of the Ecology Cluster meetings, I sat next to Peter Brodersen from Computational and RNA Biology and we started talking about our research, what questions we try to answer, and what methods we use. 

I mentioned that it has been described that mosses produce compounds that attract cyanobacteria, and we have shown that mosses produce compounds that increase nitrogen fixation by associated cyanobacteria. But it is not clear how moss and bacteria communicate and who is driving the association. We assume communication occurs because when we add nitrogen to mosses, the cyanobacteria disappear from the moss! So, the moss somehow controls cyanobacterial colonisation. Upon hearing this, Peter said that all plants, including mosses, have mechanisms similar to our immune system for defense, and maybe mosses use it to get rid of the cyanobacteria when they have access to nitrogen. Peter and his group work with the model moss Physcomitrella patens, which has been extensively studied and which we can use to answer our question on the interactions between moss and cyanobacteria. 

In the next 3 years, we will track compounds that are exchanged between the partners and investigate the moss’ immune response system."

This is one great example of how important it is to chat over coffee. It all started with “so, what is your research on?” and now Kathrin and Peter are combining their expertise and got funding for a joint project that will hire a postdoc for 2.5 years.