Bacterial Climate Resilience for Healthy Environmental, Animal, and Human Systems
BaKlimON – Bakterielle Klimaresilienz in One Health
The focus is on how bacteria and bacterial communities respond to rising temperatures, droughts, heavy rainfall, and flooding. BaKlimON—Bacterial Climate Resilience in One Health—takes an interdisciplinary One Health approach to this issue, combining environmental, plant, veterinary, and human microbiology. Researchers from Leibniz University Hannover, Hannover Medical School, and the Hannover University of Veterinary Medicine Foundation are collaborating to investigate which molecular and physiological adaptation mechanisms bacteria develop under climate stress and what consequences this has for their hosts and habitats.
The research examines both beneficial environmental and plant bacteria as well as major pathogens affecting humans and animals. A particular focus is on whether climatic stress factors alter the virulence, host specificity, or antibiotic resistance of bacteria. At the same time, the project investigates how climate-resilient microorganisms can contribute to ecosystem stability and plant health. To this end, BaKlimON combines experimental climate scenarios with microbiological, molecular biological, and data-driven analytical methods.
BaKlimON will focus on the following topics:
- Changes in the Composition and Stability of Bacterial Communities Due to Heat, Drought, Heavy Rainfall, and Flooding
- Molecular and physiological mechanisms of bacterial adaptation to climate-induced temperature and water stress
- Effects of climate adaptation on virulence, antibiotic resistance, host specificity, and bacterium-host interactions
- The importance of climate-resilient bacteria for ecosystem functions, plant health, and human and animal health
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