Microbiomes Drive Planetary Health

The invisible world of microorganisms holds the secret to the stability of our Earth. As the oldest inhabitants of our planet, they are found in all ecosystems in often highly complex communities known as microbiomes. Although microorganisms are only about a thousandth of a millimetre in size, their total biomass on our planet is greater than that of animals and humans combined. Microbiomes are not only the invisible architects of the biosphere, they also control the Earth`s biogeochemical elemental cycles and influence global change. As symbionts, they also colonise all plants, animals, and humans. Planetary health (the health of human civilisation and the natural systems in which it is embedded) is the highest attainable standard of global health and well-being. This comprehensive health perspective recognizes the inextricable link between humans and the environment and all living things. Microbiomes play a central role here. As symbionts of all higher organisms, they are essential to their health and provide the basis for the ecosystem services on which humans depend. Yet despite their importance, the links between microbiomes and planetary health are still very poorly understood. Despite the many similarities between ecologically (green) and medically relevant (red) microbiomes, research in these areas has traditionally been conducted separately. In addition, microbiome research is still mostly limited to correlative approaches, which provide exciting hypotheses about the role of microbiomes in human and environmental health, but do not lead to a causal understanding of how microbiomes function. Therefore, current attempts to specifically manipulate the composition and function of microbiomes in ecosystems or humans have had limited success. To address these gaps in knowledge, our Cluster of Excellence will bring together microbiome research in Austria at eight leading research institutions. The previously separate paths of ecological and medical microbiome research will be united here. The cluster will focus on three central themes: Microbiome Interactions, Microbiome Perturbations and Microbiome Monitoring & Interventions. These will be addressed jointly by teams of experts from the green and red microbiome research fields using the latest technologies. This innovative approach allows us to take full advantage of the synergies arising from the fusion of the two disciplines. This will enable a fundamentally new understanding of the microbiology of global change and the function of the human microbiome, which will be essential to harness the full potential of microbiomes to steer our planet towards a sustainable future.