Objective
Marine phytoplankton contribute approximately 50% of the global primary production. Despite this, our understanding of the driving forces and processes that structure phytoplankton communities is still rudimentary. Community structure is of fundamental importance for the ecosystem function and food-web dynamics. Some phytoplankton species acts as carbon sinks, others as sources, and community structure may therefore determine the direction of ocean–atmosphere CO2 exchange, with corresponding influence on e.g. the climate system. It is now evident that the effects of grazers and trophic cascades, “top down effects”, has got a strong structuring impact of both freshwater and marine primary producers. The ability to avoid grazers with chemical or morphological defences appears to play a key role in favouring population growth, sometimes allowing single species to escape their grazers and form high density “blooms”. Recently it was discovered that marine phytoplankton can sense their zooplankton enemies and respond with increased toxin production. In the proposed project, we utilize this new mechanism to manipulate defensive traits in phytoplankton and experimentally test the long debated role of chemical defences and hereto overlooked grazer induced chemical defences in phytoplankton population dynamics. We will develop general mathematical models based on experimental data to evaluate the importance of chemical defences for population dynamics and ultimately phytoplankton bloom formation. Furthermore, state of the art analytical chemistry will be applied to identify the chemical signal molecules that induce toxin production in marine phytoplankton. Slow and unsuccessful identification of signal molecules has hampered research in aquatic ecology for decades. Recent development in analytical chemistry, however, suggests that this may change shortly.
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: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: https://op.europa.eu/en/web/eu-vocabularies/euroscivoc.
- natural sciences chemical sciences analytical chemistry
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- natural sciences mathematics applied mathematics mathematical model
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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.
FP7-PEOPLE-IEF-2008
See other projects for this call
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.
Coordinator
2800 Kongens Lyngby
Denmark
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.