Plant Biotic Interactions

The PBI program supports research projects on beneficial and antagonistic interactions between plants and a wide range of organisms, including viruses, bacteria, oomycetes, fungi, other plants, and invertebrates. It covers both current and emerging model and non-model systems, as well as agriculturally relevant plants. Projects should be justified in terms of their relevance to fundamental biological processes and/or agriculture and may be either purely fundamental or applied, or combine both perspectives. The scope includes all types of symbiosis, such as commensalism, mutualism, parasitism, and host-pathogen interactions, focusing on the biology of the plant host, its pathogens, pests or symbionts, and their interactions, including the function of plant-associated microbiomes. The program promotes studies on the initiation, transmission, maintenance, and outcome of plant biotic interactions, incorporating molecular, genomic, metabolic, cellular, network, and organismal processes, guided by hypothesis and/or discovery-driven approaches. It encourages quantitative modeling alongside experimental work but does not support strictly ecological projects that do not address underlying biological mechanisms.