Small RNA in control of the Bifidobacterium gut lifestyle Bifidobacteria are important health-promoting members of the human gut microbiome. The lifestyle of these bacteria in the gut requires rigorous control of bacterial gene expression. This project will unravel the central role of a small regulatory-RNA molecule in controlling the gut-lifestyle of Bifidobacterium, including its host-health promoting effects. The results will not only improve our understanding of the role of these bacteria in the microbial ecosystem in the intestine, but will also provide new avenues to harness their beneficial effects for host health.

Wageningen University & Research will organise a 3 day symposium bringing together national and international experts from the various disciplines required to bring the One Health approach to action. The One Health Approach, and One Health outcomes, are critical tools for the prevention of future pandemics and more broadly, the prevention of negative health impacts and outcomes for all species (humans, animals, ecosystems). Bringing the approach to action (“operationalizing the OH approach”) is the leading recommendation of most reports and vision documents that were produced in response to the COVID-19 crisis. The Global One Health Research Partnership are co-organisers.

This senior expert programme with WorldFish contributes to the priority knowledge domains of ‘Agriculture for Nutrition and Health’ and ‘Climate Smart Agriculture’. In part, research within Cluster 2 of the Fish CRP builds on the NWO-WOTRO ‘Nutritious pond’ project idea to develop feeding concepts whereby the role of natural food in ponds is enhanced. The role of natural feeds is enhanced while using local feed ingredients and replacing more expensive or less sustainable ingredients like fish meal in the diet. The basic idea is that feeds should be formulated considering not only the needs of the culture species, but also the needs of the pond ecosystem. A well-functioning pond also supplies essential nutrients to the culture species, providing consumers with save and healthy products. Poor or vulnerable households engaged in aquaculture rely on ponds and thus can benefit from nutritious aquafeeds. Extra time with WorldFish of the senior expert will be used to guide research set-up, execution and data analysis. By providing an overview of all nutritious pond research, results will be put in context, and priorities for further actions will be set. Basic research will be executed by newly attracted staff and PhD students. Research outcomes will be shared with stakeholders through innovation platforms and influence innovation cycles, the latter feeding into new research. Nutritious feed concepts will be locally tested in Bangladesh (focal country) and scaling-up countries (Indonesia, Egypt and Zambia), reaching out to poor small-scale farmers. Cooperation with the RICE and RTB CRPs will also be explored.

For over 150 years, insular environments have played a key role in biology as they provide an explicit spatial and temporal context in which to study the processes behind biodiversity. Here I propose to use marine lakes - islands of seawater surrounded by land - as sample habitats to address the role of isolation in marine biodiversity. Marine lakes share many analogies with island systems: they are well-defined geographically, harbor unique biota with high numbers of endemic species and rapidly evolving populations. By comparing six marine lakes in Indonesia with comparable ages and sizes, but differing in degrees of connection to the adjacent sea I aim to establish whether short-term isolation leads to an increase in local species and genetic diversity. I will apply a multi-level comparative approach based on 1) spatial patterns of present day lake-species assemblages, 2) historic patterns of species diversity since formation of the lakes using sediment cores, 3) genetic patterns of diversity. This unique combination of study system, data and methodology will allow me to establish the role of isolation in dictating the relative contribution of ecological versus evolutionary processes on marine lake community assembly.

In the Netherlands over 45 million male chicks annually are killed immediately after hatching, This mass killing raises discussions. The public would prefer an alternative that would sex un-incubated eggs or less-specialised chicken. DLO will start research into alternatives to the culling of male chicks: the GM chicken and the Combination chicken. Both alternatives have societal consequences and also may be problematic from an ethical perspective. The general research question of our project is how to integrate the technical- , social- and ethical aspects of the two alternatives to the killing of male chicks through a joint, interdisciplinary and integrated approach to achieve best animal welfare. The overall aim of the project is to provide researchers and stakeholders with a conceptual framework and strategies that will help them to understand, evaluate and monitor the integration of the technical-, social- and ethical aspects of the two alternatives to the killing of male chicks (think of insight in success and failure factors and boundary conditions to certain strategies) as well as recommendations for policy makers on how to facilitate research initiatives on alternatives in their attempt to gain public support. The project comprises an interdisciplinary effort through a post-doc project addressing the fundamental knowledge gaps, and one (part-time) DLO project to ensure integrated knowledge development with stakeholder participation at the applied level. As part of the project a series of workshops with all project participants and the valorisation panel will be organized to integrate the new scientific knowledge, emerging from the PostDoc-project.