Global Meteorological Simulator (GMS): For plant health and disease

作物疾病、虫害和全球传粉媒介的减少都对农业生产力和世界粮食安全构成重大威胁。因此，科学界面临的关键问题之一以及政府、工业、环境和消费者机构提出的问题是“如何可持续地保护植物健康？“植物有复杂的机制来感知和适应不断变化的环境，它们与病原体、害虫和传粉者的相互作用受到天气和气候的严重影响。例如，水-叶相互作用的生物物理特性影响飞溅分散的真菌病原体的传播，风雨塑造杀虫剂抗性的适应性成本，传粉者的成功取决于花的湿度。我们已经确定了英国开展植物健康和疾病研究的能力存在差距，这一差距介于目前的受控环境技术组合和大型实地研究之间。广泛使用的植物生长室无法准确捕捉或控制风、雨、雾等天气条件。相比之下，田间研究面临着控制和复制的挑战，这对植物研究很重要。经过与世界领先的植物研究定制控制环境设计师和供应商的详细讨论，我们建议购买一个独特的定制全球气象模拟器（GMS），该模拟器有可能从根本上改变我们在广泛的BBSRC研究中的方法。GMS将能够控制温度、光照、湿度和二氧化碳，并将提供降雨、雾和风控制的新功能。该设计将最大限度地提高重复实验的数量，同时保持大规模的实验能力。GMS汇集了来自生物科学，数学，医学院和心理学等广泛学科的性别平衡的调查人员团队，跨越了所有职业阶段。这些研究项目将利用该团队在植物生理学、微生物学、应用昆虫学、神经行为学、计算生物学和数学建模方面的专业知识，解决环境和气候变化如何影响的重要挑战：1.作物病害流行病学、传播、毒力和抗药性。植物生长、发育和植物与病原菌的相互作用3.昼夜节律和集体藻类运动4.植物-害虫相互作用和农药抗性动态5.植物与传粉者的相互作用，多感官行为和传粉者的空间学习。这将为植物健康的突破性发现创造潜力。此外，GMS将促进和扩大整个埃克塞特大学，西南地区，重要的是，与我们的工业合作伙伴的跨学科合作。

Crop diseases, pests and global pollinator decline all pose a major threat to agricultural productivity and world food security. Thus, one of the key questions facing the scientific community and posed by government, industry, environmental and consumer bodies is "How can plant health be sustainably protected?"Plants have sophisticated mechanisms for sensing and adapting to changing environments and their interactions with pathogens, pests and pollinators are critically impacted by weather and climate. For example, the biophysical properties of water-leaf interactions impact the transmission of splash-dispersed fungal pathogens, wind and rain shape the fitness costs of pesticide resistance and pollinator success depends on floral humidity. We have identified a gap in the UK's capability to carry out research into plant health and disease that sits somewhere between the current portfolio of controlled environmental technologies and large field studies. The widely used plant growth chambers cannot accurately capture or control weather conditions like wind, rain and fog. By contrast, field studies face challenges with control and replication which is important for plant research. As a result of detailed discussions with a world leading designer and supplier of customised, controlled environments for plant research we propose to purchase a unique custom-built Global Meteorological Simulator (GMS) that has the potential to fundamentally change our approach to research across a wide BBSRC-facing remit. The GMS will enable the control of temperature, light, humidity and CO2, and will provide the novel features of rainfall, fog and wind control. The design will maximise the number of replicate experiments that can be carried out concurrently whilst maintaining large-scale experimental capability. The GMS brings together a gender-balanced team of investigators from a wide range of disciplines that includes Biosciences, Mathematics, the Medical School and Psychology and that span all career stages. The research projects will utilise the team's expertise in plant physiology, microbiology, applied entomology, neuroethology, computational biology and mathematical modelling to address important challenges of how environment and climate change affect:1. Crop disease epidemiology, transmission, virulence and antimicrobial resistance2. Plant growth, development and plant-pathogen interactions3. Circadian rhythms and collective algal movement4. Plant-pest interactions and pesticide resistance dynamics5. Plant-pollinator interactions, multisensory behaviour and the spatial learning of pollinators.This will create potential for ground-breaking discoveries for plant heath. Moreover, the GMS will promote and expand interdisciplinary collaborations across the University of Exeter, the South-West region and importantly, with our industrial partners.