Descrizione del progetto
Prevedere l’impatto dei cambiamenti climatici sulle barriere coralline
Le barriere coralline occupano lo 0,1 % delle regioni oceaniche mondiali e ospitano il 25 % di tutte le specie marine sul pianeta. I cambiamenti climatici minacciano queste meraviglie naturali. Il progetto 4D_REEF, finanziato dall’UE, analizzerà le zone che possono supportare le barriere coralline nei futuri scenari di mutamento climatico. Esso svilupperà strumenti di analisi e monitoraggio per paragonare le condizioni presenti e passate, abbracciando le ere geologiche di Pliocene e Olocene. I risultati aumenteranno la nostra comprensione in merito alla risposta biotica ai cambiamenti climatici e forniranno riferimenti essenziali per la previsione dell’impatto del cambiamento ambientale globale in corso. Grazie all’unione di principali gruppi ed esperti provenienti da diversi campi di ricerca, 4D_REEF rappresenterà inoltre un ambiente di formazione per i ricercatori nella fase iniziale.
Obiettivo
Coral reefs are the economically most highly valued ecosystems in the world. However, ongoing anthropogenic environmental changes have severely degraded their environments. Analyses of fossil data show that reefs living in so-called turbid habitats, characterized by the influence of terrestrial run-off, played an important role in the origins and maintenance of reef ecosystems. Key questions addressed in 4D-REEF are: 1) What did pristine reefs look like?; 2) Can we predict which areas will most likely support coral reefs in future climate change scenarios?; 3) Is it possible to develop monitoring tools that can be used to compare current and past conditions? We will study examples from the Holocene, prior to significant anthropogenic impact, and the Pliocene, a future greenhouse analogue, and compare them with the present-day reef conditions. These new data will provide the essential baselines for predicting the impact of ongoing global environmental change.
4D-REEF will develop new techniques for data collection, analysis, and visualisation that can be applied in future data-intensive projects in the Earth and Life Sciences. The increasingly complex, large size and 3D nature of datasets calls for the application of innovative techniques to be developed and standardised through cross-sectoral collaborations between Earth and Life scientists and visualisation experts.
4D-REEF will bring together leading groups and experts from a range of research environments, including universities, natural history museums, an applied science institute, SME, and NGO. This will generate a training environment in which the ESRs can make informed decisions to pursue high-level careers in or outside academia, and modify their training programme accordingly. Because of our interdisciplinary approach, the current need to understand biotic response to on-going environmental change, we believe that this is an ideal topic for the training of a cohort of Early Stage Researchers.
Campo scientifico
Parole chiave
Programma(i)
Argomento(i)
Meccanismo di finanziamento
MSCA-ITN - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Networks (ITN)Coordinatore
2333 CR Leiden
Paesi Bassi