Microbes play a wide variety of essential roles in keeping our guts healthy and in supporting food and agriculture production. Conversely, some microbial populations can cause serious disease, as foodborne pathogens or infectious agents of food-producing animals and crops.

In an ever-changing world, it is essential that individuals are able to access, and act upon, the most relevant information and advice, and no more so than in agriculture.

Soil biodiversity is critical to ecosystem functioning, but our understanding of the richness and distribution of soil organisms lags far behind that of biodiversity above ground.

High throughput sequencing is a powerful tool used to rapidly obtain information about nucleic acids and this can increase our understanding of the biology of a cell and assess changes that may indicate disease.

The public are being asked to report sightings of 22 tree pests and diseases and newly emerging threats.

Since the emergence of late blight (Phytophthora infestans) in the 1840s this disease has presented a major challenge to the potato industry, with annual losses estimated to be £55 million in the UK.

Infrared (IR) Spectroscopy is a versatile analytical technique that can characterise a wide variety of different sample types e.g. from drugs and plastics to soil and minerals.