Description du projet
Les coraux peuvent-ils s’adapter au changement climatique?
Les coraux de Méditerranée pourront-ils s’adapter au réchauffement des eaux dû au changement climatique? Ils sont peut-être avantagés par le fait que leurs habitats connaissent naturellement de fortes fluctuations de température et de salinité, ainsi que par l’abondance de fer provenant des écoulements terrestres. Le projet MedCorP, financé par l’UE, tentera de répondre à cette question en utilisant une combinaison inédite de technologies de microdétection à haute résolution, de bio-imagerie et de spectrométrie à l’échelle nanométrique pour explorer le métabolisme des coraux méditerranéens à l’échelle microscopique. Les chercheurs mesureront leurs réponses métaboliques à des températures élevées et à la disponibilité du fer, et quantifieront le rôle du fer inorganique dans le métabolisme cellulaire des coraux. Ils développeront également un nouvel indice de santé du corail basé sur la performance métabolique du corail.
Objectif
Mediterranean corals live in habitats with naturally high fluctuations of temperature and salinity, which could enable their survival under future extreme climatic scenarios. The nutritional status of corals is linked to the uptake of several micronutrients, which support cellular metabolism and growth. Among these, iron is a fundamental micronutrient for respiratory and photosynthetic processes. Although the iron concentration in seawater can be extremely low, Mediterranean coastal waters are subject to large quantities of nutrients, including iron, via runoff discharge from land. Most corals require a certain amount of iron to support their metabolic processes, but the assimilation rate, critical thresholds, and the allocation of iron in different spatial compartments of corals remain to be studied. This project aims to describe the effects of elevated temperature and iron enrichment on the microenvironment and ecophysiology of corals from the Mediterranean Sea through a novel combination of high-resolution microsensing technologies, bioimaging, and nanoscale spectrometry to explore coral metabolism at the microscale level. By measuring their metabolic responses during elevated temperature and iron availability, I will quantify the role of inorganic iron for coral cellular metabolism, develop a new coral health index for coral metabolic performance, and share this knowledge openly to target specific actions for stakeholders (e.g. government departments, environmental agencies, scientists). With this valuable fellowship, I aim to expand my scientific experience to assess coral health comprehensively at the microscale, which I strongly believe will be a novel way to observe and predict changes in the natural environment. The outcome will serve as a new tool to precisely understand the extent of environmental changes, in particular, the effects of ocean warming and iron concentration, predicting the consequences on the Mediterranean Sea in the short and long term.
Champ scientifique
Programme(s)
- HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Main Programme
Régime de financement
MSCA-PF - MSCA-PFCoordinateur
1165 Kobenhavn
Danemark