Project description
How changes to the seasons due to climate change will affect biological activity
Climate change has distorted the length of the warm "growing" season (i.e. summer) around the world, causing a shift in the timing of seasonal biological activity (phenology). The EU-funded CyclesOfLife project will develop a framework that unites the evidence with ecological and evolutionary principles to understand the source of variations and forecast continued phenological shifts. This framework will be based on quantitative tools from life-history theory and evolutionary demography and validated at the global scale with Big Data. It will use the gradient of growing season lengths that exists across the planet's latitudes to test the relationship between season length and phenology and predict how phenology might continue to change in the future under different climate change scenarios.
Objective
Seasonal fluctuations occur throughout the planet. Ecosystems and humans alike exhibit and depend crucially on species' phenology, the timing of seasonal biological activity. Climate change has been distorting the length of the warm ‘growing’ season (i.e. summer) around the world. The resulting 'phenological shifts' comprise the most dramatic and well-documented symptom of climate change. However, phenological research has focused on idiosyncratic case studies of shifts with proximate explanations. A unifying framework that ties together the disparate body of evidence with ecological and evolutionary principles has been lacking, making it difficult to understand the source of variations and forecast continued phenological shifts. CyclesOfLife will establish such a framework and make timely use of big data to test the framework at an ambitious, global scale. I will build the theoretical backbone based on a novel approach I developed recently, which leverages quantitative tools from life-history theory and evolutionary demography to calculate natural selection dynamics of phenological traits in cyclically fluctuating environments. Armed with the theoretical framework, I will utilize the gradient of growing season lengths that exists across the planet's latitudes as a 'natural experiment' to test the relationship between season length and phenology. I will analyze demographic and phenological big data now available openly online to inform, test, and refine this theoretical relationship. Lastly, with deepened understanding of how growing season length around the world shapes phenology, I will make predictions of how phenology might continue to change in the future under different climate change scenarios. Beyond meeting the research objectives, the fellowship will enable my training in eco-evolutionary theory and big data science at Oxford, both powerful and timely skills needed for my career development as a leading researcher in phenology and evolutionary demography.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
- social sciences sociology demography
- natural sciences computer and information sciences data science big data
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology evolutionary ecology
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
MSCA-IF - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Individual Fellowships (IF)
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2020
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
OX1 2JD Oxford
United Kingdom
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.