New research to use scentscapes to monitor the health of ecosystems

Biogenic volatile organic compounds (bVOCs) are released by plants, soils, and microbes in response to biological activity and environmental stress. The composition of bVOCs can change within minutes to hours in response to pressures such as drought, land degradation, or disease, making them potentially powerful indicators of the state of an ecosystem’s health and the impact of changes.

This research will be led by Professor Kathy Willis, Department of Biology, in collaboration with colleagues from the Department of Chemistry. With funding of nearly £1m from NERC, the aims are two-fold. First, to demonstrate the potential of scentscapes to detect globally important examples of changing ecosystem health. Second, to develop a mobile field detection system for bVOCS using aldehyde-specific nanopore sensing technology to enable rapid and cheap in-field measurements of ecosystem health.

More information on the project is available here.