Descrizione del progetto
Strumenti basati sulla genomica ambientale per la conservazione delle aree costiere
Le aree marine costiere rivestono una notevole importanza socio-economica, ma l’impatto delle attività umane su questi ambienti altera profondamente le comunità bentoniche, che sono fondamentali per vari servizi ecosistemici costieri. Il progetto TEAM-Coast, finanziato dall’UE, intende sviluppare strumenti innovativi utilizzando approcci emergenti di genomica ambientale per studiare come le comunità costiere rispondono ai fattori di stress. Questi strumenti consentiranno alle parti interessate di prendere decisioni ben informate sulle attività umane e sulla conservazione dell’integrità ecologica. Il progetto integrerà studi e modelli che comprendono tutta la biodiversità costiera, trattando le pressioni antropiche in modo completo. Questo approccio è volto a comprendere le conseguenze ambientali ad ampio raggio di molteplici fattori di stress. Inoltre, il progetto valuterà l’importanza di questi ultimi e darà priorità alle azioni adeguate.
Obiettivo
Marine coastal areas have a considerable socio-economic importance and provide multiple services to Humankind (fisheries, nutrient cycling etc.). However, these environments are subjected to multiple anthropogenic pressures that are profoundly modifying benthic communities (i.e. organisms living on, in, or near the seabed as invertebrates, algae, bacteria etc.) that control most coastal ecosystem services. The TEAM-Coast project aims to develop a new generation of tools, based on emerging environmental genomics approaches (i.e. the study of genetic material retrieved in environmental samples), to investigate responses of coastal communities to stressors and assist stakeholders to make informed decisions regarding the balance between human activities and ecological integrity of coastal environments. Preserving efficiently these environments requires: 1) to integrate all coastal biodiversity in studies and models, a large portion being generally excluded due to technical and financial constraints; 2) to treat anthropogenic pressures in a integrated way to understand the full ecological ramifications of the multiple stressors in interaction on the structure and functioning of communities; 3) to rank the relative importance of these stressors to prioritize actions to lead. This project proposes thus to take advantage of the promises of environmental genomics to characterize the whole range of benthic communities over broad scales, at a unprecedented level of details and in a standardised, rapid and cost-effective way. These approaches will be implemented at the seascape scale to disentangle and understand ecological ramifications of multiple human-induced stressors on structure and diversity of benthic communities. Data will be then combined with cutting-edge statistical tools to identify key stressors and develop innovative management strategies. As such, outcomes of TEAM-Coast will lead to major advances for monitoring and management of European coastal environments.
Campo scientifico
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-IF-GF - Global FellowshipsCoordinatore
75794 Paris
Francia