Over the next five years, Massana and his team will use advanced genomic techniques to study the predation of bacteria in the ocean, a key process for the functioning of microbial food webs.
Researcher Ramon Massana, from the Institute of Marine Sciences of the CSIC (ICM-CSIC), has been awarded a prestigious Advanced Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), worth €2.5 million, to carry out the BYGENEX project over the next five years. The project focuses on marine bacterivory, a key process underpinning the functioning of microbial food webs in the ocean.
These ERC grants, part of the Excellent Science pillar of the European Horizon Europe programme, are aimed at established researchers leading innovative projects with high transformative potential. In this call, 281 proposals were selected from over 2,500 submissions, 14 of which will be conducted in research centres based in Spain.
Unravelling the secrets of bacterivory
The aim of BYGENEX is to study the genetic mechanisms that govern the phagocytosis of bacteria by protists—unicellular eukaryotic organisms that play a fundamental role as predators in marine microbial ecosystems. Despite their ecological relevance, the genes involved in this process remain largely unknown.
“In the ocean, protists ingest bacteria as a source of food. This process, known as bacterivory, regulates bacterial abundance and transfers carbon and nutrients to higher trophic levels. Understanding how this occurs at the genetic level is essential for incorporating it into ocean ecological models,” explains Massana.
The project will approach this issue using an integrative strategy, combining single-cell genomics, differential gene expression analysis, and functional studies. The results will allow researchers to quantify bacterivory activity in real environmental samples and generate a reference collection of genomes from uncultured protists, which will be made available to the scientific community.
“This project will allow us to make a qualitative leap in our understanding of the invisible processes that maintain balance in ocean ecosystems,” says Massana. “I am very grateful to the ERC for supporting this frontier research, which presents a significant scientific challenge but also holds great potential to shift paradigms.”
Pioneers in marine microbiology
The Marine Microbial Ecology Group at ICM-CSIC, of which Ramon Massana is a member, is a pioneer in studying the diversity and functioning of planktonic microorganisms. With the BYGENEX project, the team will strengthen its international leadership in environmental genomics and marine microbial ecology, aligning with the institute's goals to advance fundamental knowledge of the oceanic processes that sustain life on Earth.
Ultimately, the award of this grant reinforces ICM-CSIC’s position as a leading centre in marine sciences and highlights the global impact of the research carried out in its laboratories.