RHODOCAR · Global and local impacts on Atlantic RHODOlith beds: Implications for estimates of blue CARbon ecosystem services

Global and local impacts on Atlantic RHODOlith beds: Implications for estimates of blue CARbon ecosystem services

Rhodolith beds are recognized internationally as a unique ecosystem - built by free-living coralline algae - providing substrate and habitat for numerous algae and sessile invertebrates. In addition, their ability to calcify and their high abundance and biomass makes rhodoliths major carbonate producers. Recent empirical estimations suggest that the marine carbonate deposits generated by these organisms represent a total potential carbon sink of 0.4 x 109 t C yr-1. Hence, giving the increasing role of marine ecosystems in removal and storage of carbon (blue carbon), rhodolith beds may represent a not yet considered significant carbon store. The EU-funded RHODOCAR project addresses this question by determining the carbon fluxes associated to rhodolith and rhodolith-bed community metabolism, carbonate production and storage, as well as their responses to global and local stressors. This information allows assessing the importance of rhodolith beds as natural carbon sinks, thus, help ascertain whether these ecosystems meet the requirements to be integrated into climate mitigation policy, and will further allow quantifying the effects of global climate change on their carbon sequestration and storage ability. In addition, it will help recognizing potential interactions between global and local stressors and hence, aid in the development of effective local conservation and management strategies. RHODOCAR uses an integrative physiological approach to determine and scale-up individual and community productivity and the responses to global and local stressors to define the implications for ecosystem functioning and services. This approach includes a combination of laboratory, multi-factorial mesocosm and in situ experimentation, thus covering a wide range of complexity (cellular-organism-community). In addition, the project is designed to operate at a wide geographical scale, including rhodolith beds from different latitudes. To accomplish the above mentioned general aim, the project is divided into the following objectives that also represent the different work packages: WP1) Mechanistic understanding of rhodolith calcification - Determining the mechanistics and the degree of control the rhodoliths exhibit over the calcification process. WP2) Impacts of multiple global and local stressors - Determining the effects of individual and combined climate-change related and local stressors and their potential interactions on key physiological processes of rhodolith species and assemblages. WP3) Carbon sequestration and storage potential of rhodolith communities: Implications for Blue Carbon - Determining rhodolith bed-community metabolic rates, carbon flux and storage and modelling potential changes due to global and local impacts.

Текст от CORDIS, на английски · Данни: CORDIS, © Европейски съюз