The Island Microbiome Project
In a team of young scientists and artists, we launched the Island Microbiome Project to study the fundamental processes that support biodiversity.
Biodiversity is lost at alarming rates in ecosystems worldwide, yet we still lack understanding about some of the fundamental processes that create and maintain it. According to ecological and evolutionary theory, diversity of ecosystems is affected by local evolution and the movement of species between systems. The interaction of these two processes has been studied to great extent with simulations and some simplified lab experiments, but experimental research has been limited due to the logistical challenges associated with tracking the dispersal and evolution of entire ecological communities. In the Island Microbiome Project, we explore microbial communities of island soils as a model system to study the mechanisms underlying the emergence and maintenance of biodiversity in ecosystems. We leverage cutting-edge DNA sequencing technologies and complexity science to advance ecological and evolutionary theory.
Team members:
Dr Aura Raulo (University of Oxford), Dr Guilhem Sommeria-Klein (University of Bordeaux), Dr Eveliina Hanski (University of Zurich), Dr Melissa Ward (Windward Sciences, San Diego State University), and Juuso Valli.
We conducted a pilot study in the Turku archipelago, Finland, in August 2025.
