Details of Award
NERC Reference : NE/M018806/1
Constraining the microbial carbon pump by characterising the chemical composition and functionality of autochthonous dissolved organic matter
Fellowship Award
- Fellow:
- Dr C Evans, NOC (Up to 31.10.2019), Science and Technology
- Grant held at:
- NOC (Up to 31.10.2019), Science and Technology
- Science Area:
- Atmospheric
- Marine
- Overall Classification:
- Panel C
- ENRIs:
- Biodiversity
- Global Change
- Natural Resource Management
- Science Topics:
- Mass Spectrometry
- Analytical Science
- HPLC
- FT Mass Spectrometry
- Gas Chromatography
- Climate & Climate Change
- Atmospheric carbon cycle
- Carbon capture and storage
- Climate modelling
- Dissolved organic matter
- Marine ecosystem services
- Environmental Microbiology
- Carbon cycling
- Carbon sequestration
- Microbial communities
- Pathogenic bacteria
- Pathogenic fungi
- Phytoplankton
- Primary production
- Microorganisms
- Algae
- Cyanobacteria
- Microorganisms
- Oomycetes
- Plankton
- Plant viruses
- Protozoa
- Responses to environment
- Abiotic stress (microbes)
- Light
- Nutrient deficiency - microbes
- Reactive oxygen species (ROS)
- Stress responses in microbes
- Abstract:
- The oceans contain a massive amount of carbon (hundreds of times as much as the atmosphere) which, because it is not in the atmosphere, can't contribute to trapping heat inside the Earth system via the greenhouse effect. Therefore, we want to understand how big this pool is, what makes it and whether it is getting bigger or smaller. There are several separate processes which regulate the size of this carbon store: 1) The solubility pump: Carbon dioxide from the atmosphere just dissolves into the ocean, 2) the biological carbon pump: small marine plants grow in the surface ocean, sink and then dissolve back to carbon dioxide in the deep ocean and 3) the microbial carbon pump: some of the carbon-containing matter that marine plants make during photosynthesis is so hard to break down (recalcitrant) that it just sits in the ocean for thousands of years. Of these three we know the least about the microbial carbon pump. Because the recalcitrant matter pool is so old and the flux into it is very small we have tended to concentrate on 'pumps' other than the microbial carbon pump which have larger fluxes. But the recalcitrant matter pool is actually very big, certainly big enough that if it stopped then carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere would increase enough over time to impact our climate. So what are the chances of it changing? Well, we don't know. We do know the pool is big and ancient, on average the matter it contains is 5,000 years old, but what we don't know in detail is how it is made. For example, do small marine plants just leak a tiny amount of their cell contents into the water or do they release a bit when they get eaten? Or do viruses and pathogens in the sea infect and kill them and cause this material to be formed? Could it be that recalcitrant matter is only made when the tiny microbes abundant in the sea eat part of the plants and release unwanted molecules? The answers to these questions are important, because the oceans are likely to change and it might be, that the key process which keeps this pool topped up gets smaller. In my proposal I plan to answer the question 'how does it get made?'. I will take common species of plants and microbes from around the oceans, especially the ones that make a lot of carbon and which form signals you can see from outer space, grow them in the lab and then kill them in a variety of ways. These include starving them to death in the dark, feeding them to their predators and infecting them with pathogens; the same ways they would die in the real world. Then I will see what sort of matter they make when they die in these different ways. My research has indicated that the way they die will affect what they release into the water column. For example, if they get eaten then whatever eats them will probably take all the nutritious matter and excrete low value waste material. I will compare this to the sort of matter found at the bottom of the ocean to see which processes are making the recalcitrant pool. One complication when doing this work is that I don't know exactly which characteristic of the organic matter will be the most suitable to use for the comparison. Because of this I will use some powerful analysis techniques that allow me to characterise the chemical makeup of every single carbon-containing molecule in a massive pool made up of thousands of different chemicals. My project will tell us which processes are important in production of recalcitrant matter and which aren't. In collaboration with modelling experts this information will be used in mathematical models which help us understand how the ocean carbon cycle works. The data I generate will help to make these models more realistic and fast and hence answer the question 'what will happen to the microbial carbon pump in a changing world?'.
- NERC Reference:
- NE/M018806/1
- Grant Stage:
- Completed
- Scheme:
- Research Fellowship
- Grant Status:
- Closed
- Programme:
- IRF
This fellowship award has a total value of £499,259
FDAB - Financial Details (Award breakdown by headings)
| DI - Other Costs | Indirect - Indirect Costs | DI - Staff | DA - Estate Costs | DI - T&S | DA - Other Directly Allocated |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| £52,744 | £133,595 | £220,322 | £52,484 | £15,099 | £25,016 |
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