Scientists to accelerate trees’ natural defences to disease and climate stress

Scientists are developing a new approach to help trees withstand disease and climate stress by strengthening their own natural immune systems.

The £2.5 million IMPULSA project is led by academics from the University of Birmingham and funded by the Advanced Research + Invention Agency (ARIA) Accelerated Adaptation programme. The team will investigate if resistance can be enhanced within a tree’s lifetime, rather than relying solely on adaptation over generations.

Professor Estrella Luna-Díez at the University of Birmingham and Birmingham Institute of Forest Research (BIFoR) will lead the project. Focusing initially on English oak, the researchers will develop primed^max, a state in which tree seedlings are better prepared to defend themselves, allowing them to respond faster and more strongly when challenged.

Professor Estrella Luna-Díez, Professor of Plant and Forest Resilience at the University of Birmingham and Director of BIFoR, said: “Trees have evolved over millions of years, but the threats facing our forests are now changing within decades. IMPULSA asks a radical question. Can we accelerate the ability of trees to adapt by unlocking the power of their own immune systems?

“We want to go beyond protecting trees from individual threats. Our ambition is to harness their natural capacity to prepare for stress and turn it into a technology, creating a new generation of trees better equipped for the forests of the future.”

From fundamental biology to tree resilience

IMPULSA will combine expertise in plant immunity, protein biology, epigenetics, microbiology and environmental science. The research team includes researchers from the University of Birmingham, the University of Edinburgh and University of Southampton, and will take fundamental discoveries about how genes and proteins regulate plant immunity and apply them in living trees for the first time.

Professor Steven Spoel, Professor of Cell Signalling & Proteostasis at the University of Edinburgh, said: “IMPULSA takes decades of discovery in fundamental protein biology into trees for the first time. It is a chance to uncover, and ultimately harness, the molecular machinery that could help forests fight back.”

Commercial tree nurseries will also partner on the project, ensuring the technology is developed around real-world needs. Prees Heath Nurseries, Elsoms Trees and Hillier Nurseries will all contribute their expertise in tree production and the practical requirements for eventual implementation, while Prees Heath and Elsoms will also help identify the disease and herbivory pressures experienced by young oaks.

Professor Luna-Díez added: “The nurseries give us the real-world benchmark. They help us define what successful protection needs to look like if this science is ultimately going to make a difference to the trees being planted in our landscapes.”

The longer-term ambition is to establish tree immunisation as a predictable and scalable technology, allowing nurseries eventually to produce young trees that are better prepared for the increasingly challenging environments into which they will be planted.