Objective
"The evolution of complex organisms over one billion years ago is intimately linked with a rise in atmospheric oxygen levels (O2) over a critical threshold that would support essential metabolic processes. Over the past 500 million years O2 has varied between lows of 10% to highs of 35%, compared with current ambient levels of ~21%.Critical events in animal evolutionary history have been linked with shifts in atmospheric O2 such as the origination and radiation of mammals and selective extinction of many land vertebrate groups, at three of the five great mass extinction boundaries. The potential role of O2 as a driver of plant evolution has been almost completely overlooked, despite evidence from space science which shows that sub-ambient O2 can negatively impact all aspects of plant reproduction, phloem loading and photosynthesis. This proposal will address this severe gap in our knowledge of the importance of O2 in shaping patterns in plant evolution, by investigating the role of long-term trends in atmospheric O2 on the timing of major reproductive and vegetative innovations in the plant fossil record. This palaeobotanical approach utilizing the plant fossil record will be coupled with a series of highly novel ‘atmospheric miniworld’ experiments where representative plant taxa from all three major reproductive grades will be subjected to the atmospheric O2:CO2 conditions into which they likely originated and diversified. We will address whether tipping points in the ecological dominance of different evolutionary groups of land plants (angiosperms/ gymnosperms/ pteridophytes) were driven by shifts in prevailing atmospheric O2 content. We will achieve these objectives by conducting controlled competition experiments incorporating all three reproductive grades in miniworlds with differing atmospheric O2:CO2 ratios."
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.
- humanities history and archaeology history
- natural sciences biological sciences zoology mammalogy
- natural sciences biological sciences botany
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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.
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.
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.
ERC-2011-StG_20101014
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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.
Host institution
4 DUBLIN
Ireland
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.