MegaBiCycle · The role of megafauna in biogeochemical cycles and greenhouse gas fluxes: implications for climate and ecosystems throughout history
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2019-10-01 → 2021-09-30
- EU contribution
- €184,708
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF-EF-ST
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Results in brief
The role of megafauna in biogeochemical cycles and greenhouse gas fluxes: implications for climate and ecosystems throughout history
The importance of Megafauna, terrestrial herbivores with body mass > 45kg, for ecosystems and their influence on biogeochemical cycles and climate is not well understood. Many megafauna species became extinct around 10,000 years ago due to a combination of overhunting and climatic changes. These past extinctions likely had important consequences on ecosystems and climate but are difficult to study. The still-existing megafauna populations are rapidly declining globally and the consequences of their extinction are unknown. We need to better understand the multiple ecological roles of megafauna as they likely perform critical functions that maintain ecosystem healthy and contribute to carbon and nutrient cycling which influence plant productivity and climate. This is critical for society as megafauna could contribute to mitigate climate change and increase the resilience of nature and its services from which humanity depends for its long-term survival. The MegaBiCycle objectives are to develop tools and methodologies to better study the global role of megafauna in biogeochemical cycles and their direct and indirect influence on climate. The knowledge, data, and advancements produced by the project will provide the building blocks for future research as well as will contribute to shape conservation and climate change policy.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
Megafauna play an important role in carbon cycling and fluxes of greenhouse gases. Through consumption and excretion of biomass, megafauna accelerate nutrient cycling, increasing plant productivity and influencing soil greenhouse gas fluxes. Megafauna also emit methane when digesting plants through fermentation. Consequently, megafauna can have wide-ranging impacts on ecosystem functioning and climate. However, methodological limitations in dynamic global vegetation models and research gaps in megafauna ecology hamper our ability to assess these impacts. These gaps include: (i) a limited representation of megafauna in vegetation models; (ii) a lack of large-scale, long-term studies detailing the influence of megafauna on nutrient cycling and greenhouse gas fluxes; (iii) insufficient knowledge on how the current loss and introduction of megafauna is affecting ecosystems and their services. This project will address these research gaps by first developing a new classification of the effects of megafauna across biomes for present and late Quaternary species. This classification will then be used to simulate megafauna-ecosystem interactions in a dynamic global vegetation model (ORCHIDEE). This new tool will allow to test hypothesis on the effect of past and present changes in megafauna populations on a) plant primary productivity and carbon cycling and b) methane and nitrous oxide fluxes. The proposed project has the potential to greatly advance our understanding of the connection between climate, biosphere, and megafauna. The results will have implication for climate policy and conservation. Strong contributions to climate modelling, ecology, and paleoecology are to be expected. The candidate’s experience in megafauna-ecosystem interactions and ecological modelling, coupled with the host's expertise in climate and vegetation model will provide new insights into the role of megafauna in past, present, and near future global changes in climate and ecosystems.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES · ParisCoordinatorFrance
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union