Objective
Species which inhabit the Antarctic have evolved to exist in some of the most challenging conditions found anywhere on the planet. Marine creatures must cope with sea temperatures generally ranging between 0 to -1.8 degrees Celsius and a food supply which fluctuates widely from summer to winter, rendering their survival difficult. Nevertheless, species have found the means to thrive in such conditions. Their adaptation to cold environments will have included a host of genetic changes, and to date we still know little about the nature of these molecular adaptations, the way these act in vivo, and the exact benefits such changes confer.
I aim to investigate the molecular differences between congeneric species of sponge adapted to vastly differing thermal environments and find the means by which these species adapt to cold conditions. This will be approached in several ways, starting with transcriptomic sequencing of six species of sponges of genera Axinella, Mycale and Phorbas. These are abundant in the Antarctic, Caribbean and Mediterranean seas, and play essential roles in the benthic ecosystems in which they are found. Transcriptomic analyses will be supplemented by genomic sequencing, RNA in situ hybridization, molecular ecological and functional approaches.
This will allow me multiple means of assaying the molecular and population-level diversity of these sponges, and, specifically, how they have evolved to live in such cold environments. More broadly, these findings will allow us to begin to determine whether the same adaptive molecular mechanisms to extreme cold are used repeatedly across sponge and animal phylogeny. Any evidence of convergent evolution to extreme cold will suggest constraints on the means of adaptation. Similarly, novel molecular changes would be of great interest to a wide variety of fields. Our findings will therefore add substantially to a nascent area of enquiry, and provide a firm basis for future work both in these species and beyond.
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 biological sciences biological morphology comparative morphology
- natural sciences physical sciences astronomy planetary sciences planets
- natural sciences biological sciences ecology ecosystems
- natural sciences biological sciences genetics RNA
- natural sciences earth and related environmental sciences atmospheric sciences climatology climatic changes
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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.
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H2020-EU.1.3. - EXCELLENT SCIENCE - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions
MAIN PROGRAMME
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H2020-EU.1.3.2. - Nurturing excellence by means of cross-border and cross-sector mobility
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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.
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.
MSCA-IF-EF-ST - Standard EF
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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.
(opens in new window) H2020-MSCA-IF-2016
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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.
SW7 5BD London
United Kingdom
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.