Programme: Accelerated Adaptation

Funded projects

We’re funding a cohort of interdisciplinary teams who are exploring approaches to accelerating adaptation in wild species in a variety of systems — from bog moss to amphibians — as well as teams who will ensure that this work remains responsible and rigorous through data validation, modelling, and ethics and governance research.

If successful, capabilities derived from this programme could add a genuine new option to the conservation toolkit, complementing established stewardship and the essential work of reducing the pressures driving nature’s decline.

• TA1 · Systems
• Trees + forests
• Vaccinating trees: engineering RNAi-based protection against emerging fungal diseases TA1 · Systems Sarah Christofides, University of Cardiff

  Ash dieback disease is devastating European ash across the UK, threatening a tree species that supports hundreds of other organisms and is worth around £230 million a year in ecological and social value. Trees are too slow to easily adapt naturally, and even targeted breeding takes decades: far too slow to halt a fast-moving epidemic.

  This project proposes the use of RNA interference, a technique that uses RNA to very precisely silence specific genes in the fungus responsible for ash dieback, without the need for genetic modification. This approach would identify the fungal genes essential for infection, then design and deliver short RNA molecules that switch those genes off. Machine learning and automated lab screening will speed up the search for effective gene targets and RNA designs, with multiple targets combined to make the treatment harder for the fungus to evolve an escape route. At every step of the process, candidate molecules will be thoroughly tested to ensure that they don't harm the tree or other species.

  This project will test the feasibility of this approach on ash seedlings within contained conditions. If successful, the method is designed so that it could be readily adapted to other emerging tree diseases in future, offering a quick-response solution for tackling novel threats to native trees.

  TeamEdward Woolley, Lynne Boddy, Hilary Rogers, Peter Kille + Georgina Menzies, University of Cardiff

• IMPULSA: Tree immunisation platform for urgent landscape-scale adaptation TA1 · Systems Estrella Luna-Diez, University of Birmingham

  Forest regeneration is increasingly threatened by disease and climate stress, but trees cannot adapt traits to cope with these pressures fast enough. IMPULSA will explore a radically different approach: rather than waiting for resistant trees to emerge over generations, they will investigate whether resistance can be engineered within a tree’s lifetime by enhancing its own immune system.

  Focusing on English oak, the project will develop primedmax, a state in which seedlings are better prepared to defend themselves, allowing them to respond faster and more strongly when challenged. They will test different ways of training and strengthening the trees’ own natural defences, determine how long that protection lasts, and also investigate if this enhanced resilience works under future climate conditions and against multiple threats, including disease, insect pests and drought.

  The ultimate ambition is to support natural tree immunisation as a predictable and scalable technology. Working with three commercial tree nurseries, the project will use real-world disease and herbivory pressures and nursery requirements to guide controlled experimental validation. This will establish the evidence and quality-control framework needed for future deployment, with the longer-term goal of producing young trees that are better prepared for the increasingly challenging environments into which they will be planted.

  TeamJames McDonald, Özge Eyice, Sami Ullah, Marco Catoni, Andrew Plackett, Scott Glaberman, Scott Hayward, Alice Gauthey + Daniel Gibbs, University of Birmingham; Steven Spoel, University of Edinburgh; Tomislav Cernava, University of Southampton

• Can fully grown wild trees be made pathogen-resistant? TA1 · Systems Karen Sarkisyan, Syntato

  This project will explore whether mature trees can be made pathogen resistant through “RNA vaccination” tissue grafts. These grafts would be created from tissue taken from the tree and engineered to express RNA molecules that are able to travel throughout the tree, sense pathogen-associated RNA, and trigger a local defence or cell-death response in infected tissue.

  Initially, the team will test whether the sensing mechanism can be made to work, and whether it can then trigger a defence response. If successful, they will explore whether it can work across different plant species, how it could be delivered to a living tree, and if the resistance is effective across the whole tree. The key marker of success will be a demonstration of enhanced pathogen resistance, first in a simple test system, then in tree saplings in controlled environments.

  TeamArjun Khakhar, Colorado State University; Lea Meneu + Feng Gao, Syntato

• Accelerated adaptation via reversible modification of flowering time in trees TA1 · Systems Steven Hanley, Rothamsted Research

  Climate change and rising pest and disease pressure are threatening UK tree populations, putting species such as ash, oak, beech and chestnut at risk of going the same way as the elm, which has been devastated by disease. Conventional breeding could help deliver more resilient trees, but trees take decades to reach flowering age, making breeding programmes far too slow to keep pace with fast-moving threats.

  This project aims to remove this limiting factor by engineering tree lines to flower in months rather than decades. This will allow many generations of selection for natural genetic variation associated with resilience. Fast-flowering genes can then be bred out of the adapted tree offspring arising from a breeding programme, leaving trees that inherit natural beneficial traits whilst returning to normal growth and flowering.

  The work will focus on the feasibility of producing these fast-flowering tree lines in ash and oak by producing lab-grown plant material to work from, identifying and modifying the genes that control flowering time, and then confirming whether the resulting trees flower early. If successful, this approach could become a reusable platform that could be applied to other species facing similar threats.

  TeamSophie Titman, Rothamsted Research; Sergio Cerezo-Medina, Instituto de Recursos Naturales y Agrobiología de Salamanca (IRNASA); Richard Buggs + Rômulo Carleial, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew; Andrew Plackett + Graeme Kettles, University of Birmingham

• SPEED: Seed priming to engineer early drought-tolerance in trees TA1 · Systems Charlotte Seal, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

  Increasingly frequent and severe UK droughts are threatening the ability of trees to regenerate from seed, as young seedlings are especially vulnerable to water shortage. Trees live so long that they adapt only very slowly and are unable to keep pace with the novel challenges they face as a result of rapid climate change, putting our national woodlands at risk. No tools currently exist to identify which tree seeds are naturally more drought-tolerant, and the seed and seedling stage has never been deliberately engineered for resilience.

  This project aims to boost the drought survival of tree seedlings by combining detailed imaging, chemical analysis and machine learning to identify the traits and biological signatures linked to natural drought tolerance in common alder. It will then test whether pre-treating seeds ("priming") – a technique already used in agriculture – can improve seedling survival and recovery under drought, and whether this benefit persists and transfers to other seed sources and a second tree species.

  The result would be practical tools to select more resilient seed and boost trees' natural drought tolerance, supporting future woodland planting.

  TeamAnne Visscher, Davide Gerna, Efisio Mattana + Louise Colville, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew

• Amphibians
• SHIELD: Skin holobiont immunity via engineered lineages and design for amphibian chytrid resistance TA1 · Systems Henry Lee, Cultivarium

  Chytrid fungal infections have already wiped out or severely depleted over 500 amphibian species worldwide – the worst pathogen-driven biodiversity loss on record. One of these fungi, Batrachochytrium salamandrivorans, is now spreading across Europe and threatens the UK's newts and salamanders, most of which have no natural resistance and reproduce far too slowly to adapt in time.

  This project aims to give amphibians a rapid, engineered defence by using AI to design proteins that neutralise the fungus, which can then be produced by bacteria that already live harmlessly on the animals' skin to create a highly specific, defensive 'shield'. The project will design and test these protein defences, screen a large library of naturally occurring skin bacteria for useful protective genes, engineer the most promising bacteria to produce the defensive proteins, and then trial the engineered bacteria on salamanders and frogs under controlled conditions.

  Success would demonstrate a reusable method for protecting vulnerable wild species from emerging infectious diseases.

  TeamNili Ostrov, Cultivarium; Kieran Bates, Queen Mary University of London; Matthew Fisher, Imperial College London

• Pollinating insects
• Protecting beneficial pollinators: HIVE, LEAP, AGR (HLA) consortium TA1 · Systems Mark Hanson, University of Exeter

  Pollinating insects are vital to our ecosystems and our food security, but face mounting pressure from insecticide use, habitat loss and climate-driven shifts in disease and pathogen exposure. This project aims to build the genetic tools needed to help pollinators respond to these threats.

  The work spans three linked strands. One will catalogue the antimicrobial peptides bumblebees use to fight infection, and identify the genetic variants needed to cope with future UK pathogens and microbes. A second will engineer insecticide resistance into a GB Red Listed British butterfly, the swallowtail, as a proof of concept that vulnerable insects can be given specific genetic assistance. A third will develop a gene-editing method that works by injecting adult insects rather than requiring lab-reared young, making it adaptable to a much wider range of species.

  Together, the three strands aim to develop and demonstrate the genetic tools that could protect Britain's pollinators from population collapse.

  TeamLuke Alphey, University of York; Bartek Troczka, University of Exeter

• Engineering viral resilience in wild pollinators TA1 · Systems Marco Archetti, Pennsylvania State University

  Wild pollinators in the UK are declining, and one significant driver is deformed wing virus that is spread from managed honeybees and infects up to 60% of wild bee populations, shortening their lives and reducing colony reproduction. Unlike slower pressures on our wild pollinators (e.g. habitat loss), we can potentially deliver a release from the viral burden within a single season.

  This project proposes protecting wild bumblebees from deformed wing virus through engineered "defective interfering particles" (DIPs): modified viral particles that hijack the virus's own replication machinery by redirecting it to produce fewer viral particles. Because these particles spread naturally between bees through contact, protection could extend across a colony and even between colonies.

  The project will develop and test the particles in the buff-tailed bumblebee under controlled conditions, comparing several delivery methods and checking that the treatment is both effective and safe, including monitoring for unwanted viral evolution. Phase two will then extend the approach to another bumblebee species to test how well it generalises.

  TeamMark Brown, University of Cambridge; Eugene Ryabov, the James Hutton Institute

• Foundational plants for critical habitats
• FutureMoss: Future-proofing peat moss for a changing climate TA1 · Systems Thomas Parker, the James Hutton Institute

  FutureMoss aims to accelerate climate adaptation in Sphagnum moss, the peat-forming genus underpinning peatland carbon storage, biodiversity and water retention. Since Sphagnum lacks roots and stomata, it relies on structural adaptations for water retention, but increasing drought frequency from climate change threatens its persistence, jeopardising peatland restoration efforts.

  The project will identify naturally occurring drought-resilient Sphagnum varieties across UK and Ireland populations, characterise the genetic and physiological traits underlying superior drought performance, and develop genetic improvement approaches (including establishing controlled sexual reproduction, a first for Sphagnum) to generate new drought-tolerant genotypes.

  Success would support long-term peatland resilience under a changing climate.

  TeamRobert Hancock, the James Hutton Institute; Mascha Bischoff, Environmental Research Institute; Ben Langford, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

• Accelerating marram grass adaptation for climate-resilient dunes TA1 · Systems Luke Dunning, University of Sheffield

  Coastal sand dunes act as natural flood defences and provide habitat for threatened species, but depend on dune-building grasses tolerating a narrow window of sediment burial. Rising sea levels and storm frequency are intensifying sand movement, pushing burial rates beyond what these grasses can withstand and threatening dune collapse.

  This project aims to enhance the growth capacity and burial tolerance of European marram grass (Calamagrostis arenaria), the continent's most widespread dune-building species by producing larger, and more storm- and sea-level-resilient dunes. The approach combines three complementary strategies: sourcing populations that had been introduced to more extreme environments from the UK to recover high-performance phenotypes; exploiting hybridisation across Calamagrostis to unlock novel adaptive traits; and developing a genomic prediction framework to identify high-tolerance genotypes.

  Together these target distinct mechanisms of rapid adaptation, offering multiple routes to transformative trait enhancement.

  TeamKimberley Simpson, Colin Osborne, Nicola Nadeau, Jon Slate, Emma Curran, William Brightly + Emily Bailes, University of Sheffield; Valérie Reijers, Utrecht University

• TA3 · Modelling
• MERGE: Modelling Evolutionary Resilience: from Genes to Ecosystems TA3 · Modelling Katie Willis, Imperial College London

  Across the Accelerated Adaptation programme, teams are exploring interventions to help wild species and ecosystems adapt faster to emerging threats. Deciding which interventions to pursue, and understanding their wider risks and benefits, requires robust quantitative modelling. This project brings together three research groups spanning genetics, population and ecosystem modelling to build that capability.

  The team will build modelling tools that predict how candidate interventions affect population and ecosystem resilience, quantifying likely benefits, harms and uncertainty, and produce trade-off assessments to guide decision-making across the programme. A key aim is to integrate modelling across scales, from genes to entire ecosystems, into one coherent, reusable framework, delivered as a practical toolkit, including software and a written guide, that people outside the project can use to assess future interventions.

  TeamMark Pagel, University of Reading; Simon Frost, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine

• TA4 · Data + analytics
• Shared data infrastructure for climate biodiversity research TA4 · Data + analytics Terry Burke, University of Sheffield + Felix Shaw, Earlham Institute

  Environmental research programmes often lack shared standards for collecting, managing and verifying data, creating duplicated effort and inconsistent quality across teams. This project will build shared data infrastructure to fix that: a common data schema and reporting standard, open-source analysis pipelines with dedicated support, and an independent verification process that checks and badges results.

  The work will also include the development of dashboards for real-time programme monitoring and public sharing of results, plus training to help research teams adopt the new standards without adding significant administrative burden.

  The project aims to show that consistent, rigorous data practices can be maintained across a large research programme and to establish a reusable model for trustworthy biodiversity data infrastructure more broadly.

• TA5 · Ethics + social responsibility
• Governing novel conservation and ecological engineering through plural value frames and systemic risk assessment TA5 · Ethics + social responsibility Marzia Briel, University of Reading + Alexandra Davey, Royal Botanic Garden Edinburgh

  Biodiversity is declining fast, and the UK's push to restore ecosystems is accelerating in scale, pace and technological ambition, spanning everything from large landholdings to gene editing. But this rapid progress risks running ahead of the current cultural, ethical and risk-management thinking needed to do it well, potentially overlooking whose values and knowledge determine what "nature restoration" looks like, and the unintended harms, interventions could cause.

  This project aims to close that gap by embedding integrated system-based governance solutions across the entire accelerated adaptation programme. It will bring affected communities and stakeholders into the process of defining what future ecosystems should look like, develop nature-centric governance approaches that treat nature itself as a stakeholder rather than simply a resource to manage, and identify and assess the systemic risks that novel restoration and genetic interventions could introduce, from unintended ecological harm to eroded public trust.

  This project will deliver a practical, transferable toolkit, including an online platform and risk mitigation dashboard to help project teams and other restoration practitioners design, evaluate and scale restoration work responsibly. The result will be holistic systems governance that supports multiple perspectives, provides guardrails, and will contribute to robust socio-ethical balancing of ecological innovations.

  TeamAdrian Ely, University of Sussex; Joanna Smallwood, University of Sussex; Tom Oliver, University of Reading and Glic, Business, community & economic consultants.