Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/C002407/1
Ecological and evolutionary responses of calcifying phytoplankton to abrupt climate change in the late Paleocene and early Eocene
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr S Gibbs, University of Southampton, Sch of Ocean and Earth Science
- Grant held at:
- University of Southampton, Sch of Ocean and Earth Science
- Science Area:
- Marine
- Earth
- Atmospheric
- Overall Classification:
- Marine
- ENRIs:
- Global Change
- Biodiversity
- Science Topics:
- Palaeobiology
- Biogeochemical Cycles
- Palaeoenvironments
- Climate & Climate Change
- Abstract:
- Fuelled by concerns about the environmental impact of human activities, climate change and its affect on the diversity, abundance, and distribution of the world?s plants and animals have become among the most important issues of modern science. In this context, my research looks at fossil plankton to investigate how changes in the environment have controlled how and where they lived, and how they evolved through time. Plankton are the floating, microscopic organisms that are the base of the global ocean food web. Their sensitivity to environmental change, e.g., seawater temperature, availability of nutrients, and salinity, means they directly control the success of higher levels of the food chain. I focus on the fossil remains of calcareous nannoplankton, microscopic algae that secrete intricate calcite (calcium carbonate) plates surrounding their cells. It is these plates that preserve as minute fossils: nannofossils. Nannofossils appeared approximately 225 million years ago and since then have had tremendous influence on the physical and biological environment of the Earth. The white cliffs of southern England are a dramatic illustration of their importance in producing rock-forming sediment. Because they are hugely abundant in the world?s oceans, they are important in controlling climate as they have a major influence on global levels of carbon dioxide (CO2), an important greenhouse gas, and also control where calcium carbonate is produced and buried. Concern is growing as to the climatic fate of Earth due to the increase in atmospheric CO2 from fossil fuel burning. We are experiencing global warming as a direct consequence of this rise in greenhouse gas levels which insulate the earth, trapping the suns solar energy. Predictions state that temperatures will continue to rise. However, we do not know for how long they will or whether there may be a natural brake in the climate system. The fossil record from approximately 55 million years ago provides a unique means to answer this. The Palaeocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was one of the most catastrophic global warming events in Earth's history are provides a unique opportunity to investigate the Earth?s response to our greenhouse future. The event demonstrates a clear climate recovery interval, without a runaway greenhouse, where after dramatic warming, climate conditions relatively quickly return to background levels. This may be because CO2 was removed from the atmosphere into oceans and forests by photosynthesising organisms (trees and plankton) and/or by the chemical breakdown of rocks. To investigate this event I will collect detailed fossil records and compare with records of plankton burial and environmental change. The research will be based at the Southampton Oceanographic Centre as part of the palaeoceanography and palaeoclimate research group, which is actively investigating critical intervals of climate change, and will collaborate with the US funded biocomplexity project BIOPE. I want to use the records to, firstly, tell us whether there was increased plankton production and whether this could be important in the drawdown of CO2. I will do this by looking at sediments from a global array of marine environments to record species differences associated with changing environmental conditions. Secondly, I want to understand the effect increased ocean acidity and decreased saturation have on plankton due to a rapid increase in atmospheric CO2. Calcium carbonate dissolves in acid and given the importance of calcareous nannplankton to our climate system, we need to know how they will respond. Thirdly, I want to know whether rapid climate change today or at the PETM is important in controlling evolution. With very detailed records of nannofossil species global distributions I can answer these questions.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/C002407/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Postdoctoral Fellow
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- Postdoctoral Fellowship
This fellowship award has a total value of £126,782
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| Total - Staff | Total - T&S | Total - Other Costs |
|---|---|---|
| £96,647 | £1,635 | £28,500 |
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