Project acronym PACE
Project Precedents for Algal Adaptation to Atmospheric CO2: New indicators for eukaryotic algal response to the last 60 million years of CO2 variation
Researcher (PI) Heather Marie Stoll
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSIDAD DE OVIEDO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE10, ERC-2009-StG
Summary Evolution of marine algae over the last 60 million years has resulted in a fundamental change in the efficiency of biological carbon pump and shift from communities dominated by calcifying algae (like coccolithophorids) to siliceous diatoms and major size class changes among these groups. The inferred shift in atmospheric CO2 over this time period has been suggested as an important selective pressure on some of these responses, including diatom adaptation to lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations via use of the C4 photosynthetic pathway, and trends towards smaller coccolithophorid cell sizes in response to greater C limitation. If current trends continue, future changes in atmospheric CO2 from anthropogenic activities are likely to reach levels last seen in the Eocene by the end of the next century; such changes will also be accompanied by ocean acidification and changes in stratification. Evidence suggests that modern calcifying algae and diatoms may employ a range of carbon acquisition strategies (such as active carbon concentrating mechanisms) according to the pH and carbon speciation of the seawater in which they live. However calcifying populations from 60 million years ago apparently had a single or less diverse array of carbon acquisition strategies. In this project we thus seek to 1) to identify and calibrate novel fossil indicators for adaptation and evolution in carbon acquisition strategies in eukaryotic algae in response to past changes in the carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2, and 2) apply these indicators to establish the nature and timing of changes in carbon acquisition strategies by algae over the past 60 million years.
Summary
Evolution of marine algae over the last 60 million years has resulted in a fundamental change in the efficiency of biological carbon pump and shift from communities dominated by calcifying algae (like coccolithophorids) to siliceous diatoms and major size class changes among these groups. The inferred shift in atmospheric CO2 over this time period has been suggested as an important selective pressure on some of these responses, including diatom adaptation to lower atmospheric CO2 concentrations via use of the C4 photosynthetic pathway, and trends towards smaller coccolithophorid cell sizes in response to greater C limitation. If current trends continue, future changes in atmospheric CO2 from anthropogenic activities are likely to reach levels last seen in the Eocene by the end of the next century; such changes will also be accompanied by ocean acidification and changes in stratification. Evidence suggests that modern calcifying algae and diatoms may employ a range of carbon acquisition strategies (such as active carbon concentrating mechanisms) according to the pH and carbon speciation of the seawater in which they live. However calcifying populations from 60 million years ago apparently had a single or less diverse array of carbon acquisition strategies. In this project we thus seek to 1) to identify and calibrate novel fossil indicators for adaptation and evolution in carbon acquisition strategies in eukaryotic algae in response to past changes in the carbon cycle and atmospheric CO2, and 2) apply these indicators to establish the nature and timing of changes in carbon acquisition strategies by algae over the past 60 million years.
Max ERC Funding
1 774 875 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-12-01, End date: 2015-11-30
Project acronym THE LAST SONG
Project The Last Song of the Troubadours: Linguistic Codification and Construction of a Literary Canon in the Crown of Aragon (14th and 15th centuries)
Researcher (PI) Anna Alberni Jorda
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITAT DE BARCELONA
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2009-StG
Summary This project aims at the edition, study and interpretation of the troubadour poetry written in the Crown of Aragon between the 14th and 15th centuries, with special attention to its reception by a learned public of connoisseurs haunted by the myth of courtly love and its associated culture in the late medieval period. While Italy, France and the rest of the Iberian Peninsula were already moving towards Humanism, in the Crown of Aragon the prestige of the poetic universe created by the troubadours managed to make its way into the 15th century, and was adapted to new cultural fashions through a particular process of appropriation and re-codification that is unique in Europe. The purpose of this project is to enlarge and deepen our knowledge of a linguistic and literary heritage that functioned as a vertebrate agent in medieval aesthetics and poetics and well into the Modern Age. By exploring the paths of this re-codification process, working simultaneously at a linguistic, literary and historical level, we will be able to grasp new aspects of a canon that has been determinant in subsequent artistic movements, namely Spanish Renaissance poetry and the highly innovative discourse undertaken by the Catalan poet Ausiàs March, through which the long autumn of the Middle Ages is finally concluded, giving entrance to Modern poetry in the Iberian peninsula. The project will thus inquire into the question of how the aesthetic and linguistic code of the troubadours shaped the mentality of courtly society, establishing an intellectual and stylistic background in which the literary culture of Europe is deeply rooted. Part of the results of the research will be displayed in a critical digital edition, including codicological, linguistic, literary and historical data that will make the texts express themselves in order to permit a full comprehension of the corpus considered.
Summary
This project aims at the edition, study and interpretation of the troubadour poetry written in the Crown of Aragon between the 14th and 15th centuries, with special attention to its reception by a learned public of connoisseurs haunted by the myth of courtly love and its associated culture in the late medieval period. While Italy, France and the rest of the Iberian Peninsula were already moving towards Humanism, in the Crown of Aragon the prestige of the poetic universe created by the troubadours managed to make its way into the 15th century, and was adapted to new cultural fashions through a particular process of appropriation and re-codification that is unique in Europe. The purpose of this project is to enlarge and deepen our knowledge of a linguistic and literary heritage that functioned as a vertebrate agent in medieval aesthetics and poetics and well into the Modern Age. By exploring the paths of this re-codification process, working simultaneously at a linguistic, literary and historical level, we will be able to grasp new aspects of a canon that has been determinant in subsequent artistic movements, namely Spanish Renaissance poetry and the highly innovative discourse undertaken by the Catalan poet Ausiàs March, through which the long autumn of the Middle Ages is finally concluded, giving entrance to Modern poetry in the Iberian peninsula. The project will thus inquire into the question of how the aesthetic and linguistic code of the troubadours shaped the mentality of courtly society, establishing an intellectual and stylistic background in which the literary culture of Europe is deeply rooted. Part of the results of the research will be displayed in a critical digital edition, including codicological, linguistic, literary and historical data that will make the texts express themselves in order to permit a full comprehension of the corpus considered.
Max ERC Funding
436 200 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-11-01, End date: 2013-06-30
