Glaciers and ice sheets were long believed to be sterile environments, but just like other large ecosystems (e.g., tropical forests, tundra), they are now widely recognized as one of the Earths biomes, teeming with life. Active algae, fungi, bacteria and viruses dominate the glacial environment and they have the ability to change the physical and chemical characteristics of the ice and snow, with global effects. For instance, increasing ice melt rates are observed due to growth of pigmented algae on glacier surfaces and substantial amounts of methane from subglacial habitats are added to the global greenhouse gas budget. Despite their global influence, many of the microbiological processes within the cryosphere remain poorly quantified. A deeper understanding of such processes are relevant to researchers interested in the possibility of life on icy extraterrestrial bodies, the survival and proliferation of life forms on our early Earth (e.g. during the part of the Proterozoic era known as Snowball Earth), and the positive and negative feedbacks that the cryosphere may have on global warming. The microbial communities living in association with icy environments may also harbor unique metabolic pathways, providing novel opportunities in biotechnology. ICEBIO is a Doctoral Network that will train the next generation of glacier microbiology and biogeochemistry experts. The training and research programme is made up of seven interlinked Work Packages (WP). WP1 to WP4 are research work packages at the cutting edge of glacial microbiology and biogeochemistry and these will be supported by three overarching WPs (WP5-7) associated with the management, training, and dissemination of results. ICEBIO will deliver a detailed framework and database of the functional diversity and potential of the glacier biome, not only serving to dramatically advance our understanding of a threatened biome, but also laying out potential for use in economic and environmental services.

In ARISTO (the European Industry - Academia Network for RevIsing and Advancing the Assessment of the Soil Microbial TOxicity of Pesticides), leading universities and industrial partners join forces to perform a cutting edge research and doctorate training programme tackling the global challenge of minimising the environmental off-target effects of pesticides. The multi-sectoral approach of ARISTO, interlinking disciplines from soil microbiology, microbial ecology, environmental chemistry and risk assessment, will generate the new generation of Microbial Ecotoxicologists specialized in pesticides-soil microbes interactions. The research challenge of ARISTO is to produce benchmarking knowledge supporting the development of advanced tools and procedures, based on the response of key microbial indicator groups like ammonia-oxidizing microorganisms (AOM) and arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi (AMF), for the comprehensive assessment of the toxicity of pesticides on soil microorganisms. ARISTO offers doctorate fellows a challenging training programme build along 5 research objectives: (1) to develop pioneering in vitro tests, as a first conservative step, to assess the toxicity of pesticides on distinct AOM (ESR1) and AMF (ESR2) strains (2) to develop advanced experimental lab and field tests to assess the toxicity of pesticides on natural soil assemblages of AOM (ESR3) and AMF (ESR4), as a more realistic toxicity assessment step (3) to develop an ecosystem-level toxicity assessment: identify the response of soil microbial networks to pesticides (ESR5) and explore the impact of pesticides on microorganisms from different trophic-levels within the soil food-web (predator - prey) (ESR6) (4) to develop novel tools and procedures to determine the soil microbial toxicity of pesticide mixtures (ESR7) and biopesticides (ESR8) (5) to develop & validate advanced in silico tools for prioritizing transformation products (TPs) of pesticides with potential toxicity to soil microbes (ESR9)