Adaptive evolution in marine algae under climate change and consequences for ocean services (ADVANCE)
The ADVANCE project is funded under The Norway Grants Call for Proposals 2019 - Collaborative Research Projects.
It is a collaboration between the Institute of Biological Research (ICB) Cluj, Romania, as project coordinator, and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), as partner.
The planned duration of the project is 36 months (September 2020 - August 2023), and the total budget is 1.163.853 Euro.
Principal investigator: Dr. Bogdan Drugă
NIVA team leader: Prof. Richard Bellerby
Projest website: www.advance-project.com
Project description
Climate change is impacting marine systems. These changes strongly influence ocean climate, biogeochemical cycling and fundamental biological processes. Phytoplankton are photosynthetic microorganisms that form the base of aquatic food webs, and they produce more than 50% of the atmospheric oxygen. Quantifying phytoplankton response to climate change is crucial for understanding the long-term stability of marine ecosystems to enable better ecosystem management. Model representations of plankton responses are mainly based on short-term experiments, and these experiments do not provide information on the evolutionary potential of these organisms. Importantly, science is often developed independent of user requirements so that scientific products are not fit-for-purpose. Through this project we aim to understand evolutionary responses to warming and acidification in marine phytoplankton, focusing on two model organisms: Skeletonema marinoi and Emiliania huxleyi. These are globally distributed algae, often producing very large blooms in coastal marine areas. The new knowledge of planktonic response to climate change will be incorporated into coupled climate-ecosystem models to provide key stakeholders, participating throughout the project to secure targeted scientific products, with relevant information for decision making.
MAIN OBJECTIVE: to evaluate evolutionary responses of dominant phytoplankton species to ongoing climate change, and how these may impact the wider marine ecosystem and the services they provide.
The specific aims are:
1) to determine the recent historical and contemporary distribution, phenology and habitats of phytoplankton populations from observations along the Norwegian coastal and shelf system;
2) to investigate intraspecific variation in plasticity in phytoplankton exposed to realistic scenarios of ocean warming and acidification;
3) to determine whether the genotypes with higher plasticity can adapt faster to warming and ocean acidification;
4) to ascertain if strain adaptation to increased temperature/ocean acidification improves their competitive ability within modern planktonic ecosystems;
5) to project the impact of climate change on the planktonic systems including the potential emergence and dominance of adapted phytoplankton species; and
6) to determine the changing role of phytoplankton associated services under climate change.
It is a collaboration between the Institute of Biological Research (ICB) Cluj, Romania, as project coordinator, and the Norwegian Institute for Water Research (NIVA), as partner.
The planned duration of the project is 36 months (September 2020 - August 2023), and the total budget is 1.163.853 Euro.
Principal investigator: Dr. Bogdan Drugă
NIVA team leader: Prof. Richard Bellerby
Projest website: www.advance-project.com
Project description
Climate change is impacting marine systems. These changes strongly influence ocean climate, biogeochemical cycling and fundamental biological processes. Phytoplankton are photosynthetic microorganisms that form the base of aquatic food webs, and they produce more than 50% of the atmospheric oxygen. Quantifying phytoplankton response to climate change is crucial for understanding the long-term stability of marine ecosystems to enable better ecosystem management. Model representations of plankton responses are mainly based on short-term experiments, and these experiments do not provide information on the evolutionary potential of these organisms. Importantly, science is often developed independent of user requirements so that scientific products are not fit-for-purpose. Through this project we aim to understand evolutionary responses to warming and acidification in marine phytoplankton, focusing on two model organisms: Skeletonema marinoi and Emiliania huxleyi. These are globally distributed algae, often producing very large blooms in coastal marine areas. The new knowledge of planktonic response to climate change will be incorporated into coupled climate-ecosystem models to provide key stakeholders, participating throughout the project to secure targeted scientific products, with relevant information for decision making.
MAIN OBJECTIVE: to evaluate evolutionary responses of dominant phytoplankton species to ongoing climate change, and how these may impact the wider marine ecosystem and the services they provide.
The specific aims are:
1) to determine the recent historical and contemporary distribution, phenology and habitats of phytoplankton populations from observations along the Norwegian coastal and shelf system;
2) to investigate intraspecific variation in plasticity in phytoplankton exposed to realistic scenarios of ocean warming and acidification;
3) to determine whether the genotypes with higher plasticity can adapt faster to warming and ocean acidification;
4) to ascertain if strain adaptation to increased temperature/ocean acidification improves their competitive ability within modern planktonic ecosystems;
5) to project the impact of climate change on the planktonic systems including the potential emergence and dominance of adapted phytoplankton species; and
6) to determine the changing role of phytoplankton associated services under climate change.