Plight of Pelagic Primary Producers in a Changing Marine Environment: P4

Programme(s): H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility

Topic(s): MSCA-IF-2019 - Individual Fellowships

Call for proposal: H2020-MSCA-IF-2019

Funding Scheme: MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF

Grant agreement ID: 885498

Project description:

Studying coccolithophores to find clues of climate change throughout Earth's history

The greatest in size among all ecosystems on Earth, the marine pelagic ecosystem encompasses 99 % of the total biosphere volume. Its large, diverse environment is home to hundreds of kinds of organisms: bacteria, phytoplankton, zooplankton, fish, reptiles, mammals and birds. The EU-funded P4 project will investigate the impact of past climate extremes on this ecosystem. It will do this using the unicellular plant-like organism, coccolithophores, one of the main types of phytoplankton and the base of the marine food web. Since the coccolithophores were affected by climatic changes in ancient pelagic oceans, it is important to study the patterns of their past behaviours, their abundances and distribution, and how they change with colder or warmer conditions. The findings will improve our understanding of the potential future response of coccolithophores to a warming world.

Objective:

The P4 fellowship will test the impact of past climate extremes on marine ecosystems using coccolithophores, a group of marine primary producers that experienced first order effects of climatic changes in ancient pelagic oceans. Here we will use sedimentary materials of exceptional quality recovered during IODP Expedition 361: South African Climates from the Mozambique Channel (Site U1476), Natal Valley (U1474), Agulhas Plateau (U1475), and Cape Basin (U1479), to reconstruct surface water biotic response during the Mid-Pliocene Warm Period (MPWP; 3.264 to 3.025 Ma), an interval considered to be the nearest analogue for future warm climate. For the first-time, recovery of a complete Pliocene/Pleistocene succession in this region offers an unprecedented and timely opportunity to investigate episodes of major ocean and climate reorganizations during the Neogene period. With this, P4 is original and novel, being able to combine biological (assemblage composition), physical (volume, mass), and geochemical (trace elements, stable isotopes) coccolithophore-derived datasets for understanding the climate of the MPWP, and explore its link with the past dynamics of the greater Agulhas Current system. P4 is innovative and collaborative, using state-of-the-art analytical techniques, and in combination with other proxies from ongoing works of other IODP Expedition 361 scientists, offer a broad context for understanding 21st century global climate vulnerabilities. Thus, P4 results and our understanding of the potential future response of coccolithophore species to a warming world will underpin the future design of evidence-based monitoring, mitigation, and management strategies of marine ecosystem and environment. Furthermore, an exceptional set of training and transferable skills between the Experienced Researcher, the Supervisor, and the Secondment Hosts is envisioned, an important prerequisite for the successful delivery of P4’s ambitious research objectives.