HEИндивидуална стипендия2023–2025

MicroCoFE · A Microscale View to Coral Function in a Changing Environment

„Хоризонт Европа“ — Действия „Мария Склодовска-Кюри“

Период: 2023-11-01 → 2025-10-31
Финансиране от ЕС: 214 934 €
Участници: 2
Схема: HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF

Линиите свързват координатора с партньорите.

Накратко на български

Коралните рифове и начинът, по който малките им реснички движат водата за обмен на кислород и храна, се анализират с нови 3D изображения. Това помага да се разбере как коралите се справят с затоплянето и закисляването на океана.

Този кратък обзор е генериран от изкуствен интелект

Кратко обяснение, генерирано от езиков модел по текста на CORDIS. Оригиналът е по-долу.

Резултати накратко

A Microscale View to Coral Function in a Changing Environment

Context Coral reefs are highly valuable ecosystems that support biodiversity, coastal protection, and millions of people worldwide. However, they are rapidly declining due to climate-driven stressors such as warming, acidification, and deoxygenation. These factors disrupt coral physiology and lead to bleaching and mortality. A major knowledge gap remains at the microscale, where corals exchange gases and nutrients with surrounding seawater. This exchange is controlled by the diffusive boundary layer (DBL)—a thin layer of water above the coral surface. Recent discoveries showed that corals actively modify this layer using epidermal cilia, which generate vortices that enhance transport. Until now, no tools existed to visualise these processes in 3D or link them to coral stress responses. Overall Objectives This MSCA project was designed to fill this gap by developing new optical imaging tools to understand how corals regulate their microenvironment under climate stress. The main objectives were: - Produce the first 3D maps of oxygen and flow around corals using sensPIV. - Develop pH-PIV, a new method to image pH and flow simultaneously. - Determine how ciliary vortices influence coral resilience under warming, hypoxia, and acidification. - Link external microenvironment patterns with internal tissue structure using OCT. These goals integrate marine biology, biophysics, and advanced chemical imaging. Scientific Impact The project provides new mechanistic insights into how corals cope with climate stress at the microscale. The imaging tools developed allow researchers to study flow–structure–function interactions that were previously impossible to observe. These methods can also be used in other marine organisms and in biomedical systems where microscale fluid transport is important. Societal and Environmental Impact By identifying traits and species that better regulate their microenvironment, the project supports: - improved reef restoration, - better conservation planning, - selection of stress-tolerant coral species, - and evidence-based climate adaptation strategies aligned with EU policy goals, including the EU Biodiversity Strategy 2030 and the European Green Deal. Given the high cost of restoration, even small increases in coral survival can create significant ecological and economic benefits.

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

Цел на проекта

Tropical reef-building corals live in a dynamic environment with fluctuating exposure to solar light and seawater flow. It has long been assumed that corals interact passively with the surrounding seawater via a so-called diffusive boundary layer (DBL), which is a thin (~0.1-1 mm) layer of water located at the immediate surface of the coral, wherein molecular diffusion is the dominant transport mechanism for gases and solutes. The DBL can thus be an important regulating mechanism for coral metabolism. However, the recent discovery that some corals possess the ability to enhance mass transport across and within the DBL via the generation of vortices caused by the beating of epidermal cilia indicates a more complex and active control of mass transfer, albeit the importance for coral ecophysiology and stress responses remains unexplored. In this project, I will: i) develop and apply novel imaging approaches (using optical sensor nanoparticles for oxygen and pH in combination with a particle imaging velocimetry system) for studying flow and mass transfer at the coral-seawater interface; and ii) use the novel imaging techniques together with other microenvironmental sensing approaches (microsensors and optical coherence tomography) to study how ciliary beating affects coral ecophysiology. This will generate novel insights to fundamental questions of how corals exchange solutes with the surrounding seawater, how these basic processes are affected by environmental perturbations (of e.g. temperature, oxygen level and pH), and the relationship between these external processes and the internal structural heterogeneities of the coral tissue. The project will be conducted at the Marine Biology Section of the University of Copenhagen, where all experiments will take place under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Michael Kühl and complemented by a secondment at the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology (Germany) and a short visit to the Graz University of Technology (Austria).

Оригинален текст от CORDIS (на английски).

Участници

KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET · KOBENHAVNКоординаторДания
MAX-PLANCK-GESELLSCHAFT ZUR FORDERUNG DER WISSENSCHAFTEN EV · MUNCHENГермания