Description du projet
Évaluer l’importance des lits de rhodolithes en tant que puits de carbone naturels
Reconnus comme un écosystème unique, les lits de rhodolithes — construits par des algues corallines vivant librement — offrent un habitat à de nombreuses algues et invertébrés sessiles. Leur capacité à se calcifier, ainsi que leur abondance et leur biomasse, en font d’importants producteurs de carbonates. Pourtant, malgré leur distribution mondiale, leur contribution au cycle du carbone organique et inorganique océanique n’a suscité qu’un faible intérêt, voire inexistant. Ces hauts lieux de la biodiversité sont actuellement menacés par le changement climatique mondial et une série de facteurs de stress locaux. Le projet RHODOCAR, financé par l’UE, utilisera une approche physiologique pour fournir des informations sur le métabolisme des rhodolithes, la production de carbonates et les flux de carbone, ainsi que sur leurs réponses aux facteurs de stress mondiaux et locaux. Ces informations permettront d’évaluer l’importance actuelle et future des lits de rhodolithes en tant que puits de carbone naturels.
Objectif
Rhodolith beds are one of the most extensive benthic ecosystems along the Atlantic coasts and key environments to continental shelf resilience. Besides providing substrate and habitat for numerous other algae and sessile invertebrates, their ability to calcify, their high abundance and biomass, makes rhodoliths major carbonate producers. Recent empirical estimations suggest that the carbonate marine deposits generated by these organisms represent a total potential carbon sink of 0.4 x 109 t C yr-1. Hence, giving the increasing role of marine ecosystems in the storage of blue carbon, rhodolith beds may represent a not yet considered significant carbon store. Regarding carbon sequestration, studies on rhodolith bed community metabolism are scarce and so far only available for two temperate beds that indicate that they can act both as CO2 source and organic carbon sink. As many marine ecosystems, rhodolith beds are currently under threat related to global climate change (GCC), with local impacts due to increasing coastal urbanization, potentially lowering even further their resilience. Thus, by using a physiological approach, this project will provide much needed information on the basic mechanistic understanding of rhodolith metabolism (photosynthesis, calcification), rhodolith responses to global and local stressors, and rhodolith bed community metabolism and carbon storage along a latitudinal gradient. Taken together, this information will allow assessing the importance of rhodolith beds as natural carbon sinks, thus, help ascertain whether these ecosystems meet the requirements to be integrated into climate mitigation policy, and will further allow quantifying the effects of GCC on their carbon sequestration and storage ability. In addition, it will help recognizing potential interactions between global and local stressors, hence, aid in the development of effective local conservation and management strategies.
Champ scientifique
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesmicrobiologyphycology
- natural scienceschemical sciencesinorganic chemistryinorganic compounds
- natural sciencesbiological sciencesecologyecosystems
- natural sciencesearth and related environmental sciencesatmospheric sciencesclimatologyclimatic changes
- natural sciencesbiological scienceszoologyinvertebrate zoology
Programme(s)
Régime de financement
MSCA-IF-EF-RI - RI – Reintegration panelCoordinateur
8005-139 FARO
Portugal