Multimodal Chemical Signatures of Plant Holobiont Resilience in Mediterranean Post-Fire Ecosystems

Wildfires are becoming increasingly frequent and severe under climate change, profoundly altering Mediterranean ecosystems. While post-fire plant resilience has traditionally been studied at the level of individual organisms, growing evidence suggests that plants and their associated microbial communities form an integrated functional entity—the plant holobiont—whose collective metabolism may play a key role in adaptation to environmental disturbances. However, the chemical and microbial mechanisms underpinning this resilience remain largely unexplored.

The MULTICHEM-HOLO project aims to determine whether post-fire resilience is an emergent property of the plant holobiont, arising from dynamic interactions among plants, microorganisms, and specialized metabolites. The project will develop an original multidisciplinary framework that combines chemical ecology, microbiome analysis, metabolomics, and artificial intelligence to decipher the molecular signatures associated with ecosystem recovery after fire.

Field campaigns will be conducted in Mediterranean ecosystems in Greece, including recently burned areas on the island of Rhodes, using representative fire-adapted plant species sampled along post-fire ecological gradients. Plant tissues, rhizosphere, and surrounding soils will be collected from burned and unburned sites to characterize ecological resilience and investigate the diversity and functional composition of associated microbial communities.

The project will combine high-throughput microbiome profiling, microbial culturomics and multimodal metabolomics based on LC-HRMS/MS, GC-MS/MS and advanced NMR approaches. These complementary datasets will be integrated using multivariate statistics and machine learning to identify microbial and chemical biomarkers of resilience and to reveal the interactions linking microbiome composition, specialized metabolism and ecological recovery.

Beyond identifying biomarkers, the project seeks to establish a proof of concept demonstrating that the holobiont constitutes the functional unit governing plant resilience following wildfire. By integrating ecology, analytical chemistry, microbiology, and data science, MULTICHEM-HOLO will provide new insights into the mechanisms driving ecosystem recovery and open new perspectives for biodiversity conservation, sustainable agriculture, and the development of innovative biocontrol strategies.

The project is part of the International Research Project (IRP) ADAPTORS, involving the Institut de Chimie Moléculaire de Reims (France) and the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens (Greece). The successful candidate will work within a highly interdisciplinary and international consortium equipped with state-of-the-art analytical platforms in metabolomics, natural products chemistry and microbial ecology.

Research environment

The Institut de Chimie Moléculaire de Reims (ICMR, CNRS UMR 7312) is a joint research unit of the CNRS and the University of Reims Champagne-Ardenne (URCA), internationally recognized for its expertise in molecular chemistry at the interface of chemistry, biology and environmental sciences.

ICMR conducts interdisciplinary research spanning fundamental chemistry, analytical sciences, and innovation, with applications in natural products, health, bioeconomy, sustainable chemistry, advanced materials, and environmental sciences. The institute hosts state-of-the-art analytical facilities, including high-resolution LC-MS/MS, GC-MS/MS and advanced NMR platforms, providing an outstanding environment for multidisciplinary research.

The laboratory is organized into three complementary research groups. COMetA (Organic Chemistry, Methods and Applications) develops innovative synthetic methodologies and bioactive molecules while promoting sustainable, atom-economical chemistry. CSNE (Natural Products and Environmental Chemistry) specializes in natural products chemistry, metabolomics, analytical chemistry, environmental chemistry and chemometrics, with a strong focus on the characterization and valorization of chemical biodiversity. EMCA (Complex Molecular Architectures and Applications) designs functional molecular assemblies and bio-based materials for applications ranging from healthcare to environmental remediation and advanced materials.

The proposed PhD project will be conducted within the CSNE research group, benefiting from its internationally recognized expertise in natural products chemistry, metabolomics, environmental chemistry and computational analysis of complex chemical datasets. It is also embedded within the International Research Project (IRP) ADAPTORS, which brings together chemists, microbiologists, ecologists and data scientists to investigate plant resilience under climate change through an integrative holobiont approach.

Applicants should hold (or expect to obtain before the start of the PhD) a Master’s degree in one of the following areas:
•    Chemistry
•    Natural products chemistry
•    Metabolomics
•    Microbiology
•    Plant sciences
•    Bioinformatics
•    Related disciplines
Strong motivation for interdisciplinary research and international collaboration will be highly appreciated.