Funded by a £2.3 million grant from the Advanced Research and Invention Agency (ARIA), researchers believe this repatriated plant holds the key to engineering super-resilient sand dunes capable of protecting coastal communities and vital wildlife habitats.
Sand dunes are one of the UK’s most effective, natural, and cost-effective flood defences. They form when wind-blown sand gets trapped in the blades of marram grass (Calamagrostis arenaria). As sand buries the plant, the grass shoots upward, anchoring the sediment and building natural sea walls layer by layer.
However, increasingly frequent and more severe winter storms, combined with hotter and longer summers and rising sea levels are stripping native marram grass away faster than it can recover. This is directly reducing the strength and number of sand dunes around our coastline, which have seen a decrease by 30-40% over the last 100 years. This is leaving coastal towns at a much higher risk of flooding and destroying fragile and key dune ecosystems.
When marram grass was introduced to Australia over a century ago, it was forced to adapt to a much harsher environment quickly. It has evolved into a more resilient variant that grows larger, faster, and naturally outperforms native UK populations. Dr Luke Dunning and his team from the School of Biosciences plan to harness these adapted traits, using advanced genetic analysis and selective breeding to develop a hardier, fast-growing variety.
When we think of Australia, we think of hot summers, big surf and a much harsher coastal environment than we experience in the UK. Remarkably, the marram grass growing there was originally brought from Britain over a century ago, and has since become an invasive species. Because of how successfully Marram Grass adapted and thrived in its new home in Australia it is a fascinating natural experiment in evolution. We want to understand how this British grass has adapted to its new environment, and whether those adaptations could now be harnessed to build stronger, more resilient dunes back here in the UK. In a sense, we’re bringing our own grass home with some new tricks.
Dr Luke Dunning
The project brings together international experts, including partners from Utrecht University in the Netherlands which is a nation world-renowned for prioritising natural dune defences over expensive artificial concrete barriers.
Beyond protecting human infrastructure, saving these dunes preserves some of the UK's most threatened environments, which provide crucial shelter for rare insects, birds, and coastal flora. If successful, this repatriated grass could offer a scalable, nature-based blueprint for coastal defence across Europe and beyond.
About the Accelerated Adaptation programme
Backed by £54 million, the Accelerated Adaptation programme is looking to demonstrate that we can accelerate the adaptation of wild species and build the scalable tools, models, and governance foundations to unlock a genuine new option for conservation, complementing established stewardship and the essential work of reducing the pressures driving nature's decline.