PLEASE NOTE: Application deadline date 08 Jan 2024. Applications are no longer being accepted for this project
Project Overview
Have all ancient reef-builders influenced biodiversity as coral reefs do today? Coral reefs are the primary ecosystem engineers in our oceans today, but their capacity to maintain environments is threated by climate change. Using the fossil record, we can study the (in)consistency of climate change impacts on reef-building ecosystem engineers.
Project Description
Ecosystem engineers are organisms whose activities modify their landscapes and change the habitability of their environments. Today, scleractinian corals function as the primary ecosystem engineers in the oceans, creating the reef frameworks that host nearly a quarter of all marine species. However, the impacts of global warming are inhibiting coral reefs’ ecosystem engineering processes (e.g., production of framework structures, generation of calcareous sediments), potentially causing a phase shift to other invertebrate or even microbial ecosystem engineers (Wild et al. 2011)
Scleractinian corals have not always been the ocean’s primary reef ecosystem engineers (Wood et al. 1993). The fossil record preserves the rise and fall of other reef-building taxa, including non-scleractinian corals, sponges, bivalves, calcareous algae, and microbialites. This project will address major knowledge gaps such as if reef builders function similarly to modern scleractinian corals, how their ecosystem engineering processes were impacted by ancient warming events, and how this data from the fossil record be used to predict the future of reefs and their ecosystem engineering capacities.
This project will work to developing new palaeoecological methods that relate geologic records to climate change, reef-building, and community ecology. The successful candidate will focus on the following linked research questions:
- How did ancient warming events impact reefs’ ecosystem engineering abilities?;
- How have ecosystem engineering processes and outcomes differed among various reef-building taxa (e.g., ancient coral, sponge, algal reefs)?
The INSPIRE DTP programme provides comprehensive personal and professional development training alongside extensive opportunities for students to expand their multi-disciplinary outlook through interactions with a wide network of academic, research and industrial/policy partners. The student will be registered at the University of Southampton and hosted at the National Oceanography Centre Southampton.
This project will provide training in quantitative paleobiology methods, primarily utilizing the Paleobiology Database (pbdb.org). Some of the quantitative paleoecological skills and techniques you will learn and develop will include:
- Familiarity with Paleobiology Database datasets and appropriate data cleaning
- Biodiversity reconstructions
- Functional palaeoecology
- Community ecology analyses
- Spatially-explicit palaeoecological analyses
Depending on your background and interests, there is scope for both database driven research (e.g., network analyses, statistical learning, Earth systems modelling, biogeochemical modelling, e.g., following Cribb et al. 2023 or Cribb & Bottjer 2020) and/or field work-driven research (e.g., stratigraphic paleobiology, carbonate sedimentology).
A.T. Cribb et al. (2023) Ediacaran-Cambrian bioturbation did not extensively oxygen sediments in shallow marine ecosystems. Geobiology, 21, 435-453.
C. Wild et al. (2011) Climate change impedes scleractinian corals as primary reef ecosystem engineers. Marine and Freshwater Research, 62, 205-215.
R wood (1993) Nutrients, predation, and the history of reef-building. Palaois, 8, 526-543.
