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Bridging experimental and modelling approaches to predict marine native and invasive hotspots under climate change

Project description

A new tool to improve prediction of climate change effects on organisms

Coastal marine systems are among the most ecologically important on the planet. But climate change is having a profound impact on global marine habitat-forming species. This is why predicting their future distribution is vital. The EU-funded MarHot project will build on current mesocosm experiments combining species distribution models (SDMs) to produce more consistent predictions in the form of mechanistic or hybrid models. It will design a new framework to integrate physiological thermal limits into SDMs. Specifically, the project will investigate multi-species range shifts in response to marine heatwaves. It will use new analytical tools to detect extreme thermal events and the increasing availability of global databases on thermal tolerance limits. The findings will help the EU achieve the Sustainable Development Goals and biodiversity regulations.

Objective

The amplitude and frequency of extreme events, such as marine heatwaves, are increasing with climate change in the European coasts. The loss of native foundational species (macroalgae and seagrasses) will open windows of opportunity for invasive species, a major threat to Europe's biodiversity that has social and economic impacts. However, our ability to predict the future distribution of marine habitat-forming species under climate change is yet limited.
Recently, physiological thermal limits obtained from mesocosm experiments have been combined with species distribution models (SDMs) to produce more consistent predictions in the form of mechanistic or hybrid models. However, mechanistic models remain mostly untested and the existing approaches do not provide an efficient tool to produce multi-species models suitable to identify hotspots of species at risk of extinction and hotspots for invasive macrophytes.
MarHot aims at filling this gap by providing an innovative framework to integrate physiological thermal limits into SDMs in order to anticipate future redistributions of marine coastal species. Thanks to an interdisciplinary collaborative research, cutting-edge mesocosms set-ups provided by the hosts and innovative approaches to constrain SDM outputs with experimental evidence, we will investigate multi-species range shifts in response of marine heatwaves. MarHot will take advantage of recent analytical tools to detect extreme thermal events and the increasing availability of global databases on thermal tolerance limits. The project will provide a powerful analytical framework for mechanistic models and open source software for large-scale prediction of coastal macrophyte hotspots under future scenarios of marine heatwaves. MarHot outputs will contribute to achieving the Development Goals and Biodiversity regulations adopted by the EU, placing its researchers at the forefront of biodiversity conservation in the face of climate change.

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Keywords

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Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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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.

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.

(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2019

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Coordinator

UNIVERSIDAD REY JUAN CARLOS
Net EU contribution

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.

€ 172 932,48
Address
CALLE TULIPAN
28933 Mostoles
Spain

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Region
Comunidad de Madrid Comunidad de Madrid Madrid
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

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.

€ 172 932,48
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