MICRO2MACRO · Microfossils and data science: a new approach to infer the impact of global climate on plankton Macroecology
Horizon 2020 — Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
- Duration
- 2022-09-01 → 2024-08-31
- EU contribution
- €162,806
- Participants
- 1
- Scheme
- MSCA-IF
Lines connect the coordinator with its partners.
Results in brief
Microfossils and data science: a new approach to infer the impact of global climate on plankton Macroecology
One of the most pressing scientific challenges today is understanding the fate of our oceans and marine ecosystems under on-going climate change. Unfortunately, anthropogenic stressors act at a rate and magnitude that exceed recent natural variability, making the use of decadal ecological data and time-series insufficient for predictions of future behavior of marine ecosystems. MICRO2MACRO reconstructed snapshots of marine pelagic ecosystems between 54 and 50 million years ago (early Eocene), when climate and environmental conditions approximated what we may start to experience in the next centuries if global warming continues business as usual. Using the microfossil record of planktonic foraminifera (PF), the most complete of any Cenozoic eukaryote, the project generated the first methodologically controlled (hence reproducible) early Cenozoic global dataset of ecology, abundance, species composition, diversity and biogeography (macroecology) of these prolific pelagic calcifiers. The overarching goal of the project was to test for links between time-specific climate (e.g., sea surface temperatures) and ecosystem (e.g., species composition, dominant ecology) configurations, and understand how plankton biogeography was shaped in a warmer world. The new results obtained with MICRO2MACRO highlight future ecological and evolutionary analogues if the current climate trajectory remains interrupted and we are to hit climate conditions similar to those in the Eocene. Given the uncertainties associated with projections based on modern data this study represents a major advancement in the field.
Data: CORDIS, © European Union
Project objective
One of the most pressing scientific challenges today is understanding the fate of our oceans and marine ecosystems under on-going climate change. Unfortunately, anthropogenic stressors act at a rate and magnitude that exceed recent natural variability, making the use of decadal ecological data and time-series insufficient for predictions of future behaviour of marine ecosystems. MICRO2MACRO will reconstruct snapshots of marine pelagic ecosystems between 54 and 32 million years ago (Eocene and early Oligocene), when climate and environmental conditions approximated what we will start to experience in the next century and beyond. Using the microfossil record of planktonic foraminifera (PF), the most complete of any Cenozoic eukaryote, the project will generate the first methodologically controlled (hence reproducible) early Cenozoic global dataset of ecology, abundance, species composition, diversity and biogeography (macroecology) of these prolific pelagic calcifiers. Benefiting from the mole of data generated over the last 15 years, I will learn and apply novel tools in data-science technology to compile ocean temperature and chemistry datasets for the studied time intervals and statistically compare them against the new PF dataset generated with this project. This study will combine the most advanced knowledge in several disciplines (micropaleontology, informatics, statistical ecology) to test for links between time-specific climate (e.g., sea surface temperatures) and ecosystem (e.g., species composition, dominant ecology) configurations, and understand how plankton biogeography was shaped in a warmer world. Hence, MICRO2MACRO will highlight future ecological and evolutionary analogues if the current climate trajectory remains interrupted and we are to hit climate conditions similar to those in the Eocene and Oligocene. Given the uncertainties associated with projections based on modern data this study will represent a major advancement in the field.
Original text from CORDIS.
Participants
- UNIVERSITAET BREMEN · BremenCoordinatorGermany
Links
Data: CORDIS, © European Union