ANTIVERSA is project of an European Consortium, composed of teams from seven countries and coordinated by the Technical University of Dresden (TUD). 

The main objective is understand the impact of diversity on the invasion of natural microbial communities (microbiomes of aquatic stream biofilms and terrestrial soils) by ARBs, ARGs and their associated mobile genetic elements (MGEs). Aquatic biofilms and soil microbiomes of contrasting diversity will be exposed to extracellular DNA, transducing phages or resistant bacteria of anthropogenic origin in experiments following standardised procedures to be obtain comparable results from all consortium countries. Additionally, selected aquatic and terrestrial sites with different level of biodiversity from all consortium countries will be monitored over time for their biodiversity and abundance in ARGs and ARBs, under the hypothesis to find a negative correlation between the biodiversity and the abundance of antibiotic resistance. Overall, the ANTIVERSA project stresses the importance of studying the nexus between biodiversity and the antibiotic resistance with the final goal of preserving natural ecosystems services and to help develop management practices and regulations to maintain water and soil quality.