Ülo Niinemets
2013 - 2018 • Advanced Grant
How has receiving an ERC grant influenced you as a scientist?
As the first ERC advanced grant awardee in Estonia, I enjoyed unprecedented public attention, research recognition, and opening up of new horizons for my team. The ERC grant allowed me to recruit the best brains worldwide and to vastly upgrade my lab facilities, ultimately resulting in the formation of one of the best research teams in the field of plant-atmosphere interactions.
Stress-induced plant volatiles in biosphere-atmosphere system
The study delves into plant-generated volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and their impact on Earth's atmosphere and environment, highlighting their overlooked role in large-scale Earth processes. It aims to assess how VOC emissions induced under stress conditions contribute to air composition, focusing on their relationship with environmental stress severity across plant species. By developing and verifying a quantitative model for induced VOC emissions, the project sought to scale up its findings to regional and global levels, evaluating their significance in the overall VOC budget. Additionally, the study explored the complex feedback between stress, ozone, secondary organic aerosols, cloud condensation nuclei formation, and Earth's climate, offering valuable insights into plant ecology and Earth's broader processes.
Result
The project resulted in key contributions in two research fields of major significance: plant stress tolerance from molecules to globe and the role of the vegetation component in atmospheric reactivity and Earth’s climate. The first part of the study provides fundamental insight into the stress responsiveness of plants with differing tolerance to environmental limitations, extending the “leaf economics spectrum“, a hotspot of current plant ecology research. The second part provides quantitative information on the large-scale importance of plant volatile organic compounds in globally changing climates, which has major relevance for understanding the role of plants in the Earth’s large scale processes.
Impact
The amount of volatile compounds released by plants has been underestimated so far because compounds induced by stress have not been taken into account. The results of this study make it clear that the influence of plants on the climate is greater than previously thought. The concrete data on plant stress emissions at the global level can be incorporated into regional and global climate models as an important input for predicting the rate of climate change.
The discoveries of this project could also lead to applications in the field of agriculture. New tools designed to detect stressful conditions early could enable farmers to identify when a plant crop is stressed and take appropriate action. Sensitive monitoring of volatile compound emissions could help farmers diagnose the problem with unprecedented accuracy. Ongoing research aims to understand the evolution of volatile emissions right down to the molecular level.