The high mountains of South Asia, often called ‘the Third Pole’, store large volumes of water in their glaciers and snowpacks. Twelve large river basins, fed with meltwater from these mountains, are home to almost 2 billion people. In their floodplains, a significant fraction of the global food is produced (34% and 23% of the global rice and wheat production respectively). This makes the ‘Third Pole’ by far the most important region globally in terms of water reserves on which both water- and food security for a huge population heavily depend. The water supply from the Third Pole mountains faces many threats. Glaciers and snowpacks are melting at unprecedented rates, and large parts of these reservoirs are likely to disappear by the end of the 21st century. The dependence of downstream populations on mountain water resources is however increasing, mainly due to increasing water needs, continuing groundwater depletion and changes in (monsoon) precipitation. There is still limited scientific understanding of the impacts of melting glaciers and snowpacks on food and water security of people living downstream. 3POLE2SEA aims to quantify the links between the water stored in the High Mountains of Asia and the water- and food security of the people living downstream, evaluate how those links will change in the future, and use this understanding to support adaptation design. I hypothesize that the 12 river basins have very different upstream-downstream dependencies, resulting in different, cascading risks for water and food security, and therefore need different responses for effective adaptation. I will develop new models and methods to quantify upstream-downstream links and associated risks for all river basins that are fed by glacier- and snowmelt from the Third Pole. The results will advance science and inform policy makers and water managers on how to make agriculture in one of the largest food producing areas in the world more resilient to changes in the mountains.

In plants, genetic material is stored in the nucleus and the two cytoplasmic organelles: plastids and mitochondria. While both the nuclear and cytoplasmic genomes are essential for plant survival, the inheritance of these genomes is subject to different sets of rules. Cytoplasmic inheritance differs from nuclear inheritance through two unique phenomena: uniparental inheritance and vegetative segregation. Despite extensive research efforts, the molecular basis of uniparental inheritance and vegetative segregation remain elusive. A major challenge in unraveling the mechanisms is the lack of methodologies. Excitingly, recent advancements in cytoplasmic genome engineering have provided me with a unique opportunity to develop feasible approaches for exploring this crucial area of biology. The ultimate goal of this project is to achieve a comprehensive understanding of cytoplasmic inheritance, which will, in turn, enable us to control the plastid and mitochondrial inheritance. To attain this ambitious goal, we will pursue three specific aims: (1) Identifying the factors that govern maternal inheritance, (2) Promoting the selective transmission of cytoplasmic genomes, and (3) Investigating the molecular basis of vegetative segregation. In this project, we will utilize a combination of genetic and cytological approaches to study cytoplasmic inheritance in the model plants Arabidopsis thaliana and Nicotiana tabacum. The success of our project would represent the first instance of controlled cytoplasmic inheritance in plants. Our fundamental research will provide new tools for testing existing hypotheses regarding cytoplasmic inheritance. From an agricultural standpoint, breeders can leverage this unprecedented capacity to selectively transmit cytoplasmic genomes, thus enabling the inheritance of desired crop traits. The potential application of cytoplasmic inheritance in plant breeding highlights the societal impact of our research.

Seafood is a critical component of human diets and the most widely traded food group. Marine fish and invertebrates are increasingly affected by climate change. Global seafood trade could buffer the impacts of climate change by allowing for increased imports. However, global seafood trade could also double the burden for vulnerable countries by decreasing import access. Especially countries that rely on seafood for food security are potentially at risk. This project aims to investigate which nations experience worse or alleviated nutrient shortages due to global seafood trade when the supply of these foods is impacted by climate change. Moreover, this action aims to investigate local mediating factors that, together with markets, may shape food security outcomes. Such local mediating factors include governance and available pathways for switching between markets and food sources. To achieve these aims, this action will use state-of-the-art statistical methods to analyse global panel data spanning two decades of trade data in marine species and more than 3000 detailed household surveys from more than 100 villages in Indonesia. A systematic review and meta-analysis will complement by providing an overview of the current evidence base regarding the impact of global seafood trade on nutrition. The different resolutions of these large data sets allow this action to tackle this important topic from various scales, ranging from local to global. This action will contribute towards enhanced social-ecological integration, the study of food security and sustainability in a globalised world, and facilitate the interdisciplinary career development of a researcher moving from a Natural Sciences Department (University of Iceland) to a Department of Environmental Social Sciences (ENR, WUR, Netherlands). This action will advance cross-sectoral (academic and non-academic) knowledge exchange on the important topic of nutrition from seafood in a rapidly changing world.

This action supports physical and blended mobility of higher education students and staff from/to third countries not associated to Erasmus+. Students in all study fields and cycles can take part in a study period or traineeship abroad. Higher education teaching and administrative staff can take part in professional development activities abroad, as well as staff from the field of work in order to teach and train students or staff at higher education institutions.