PALEOWEB

Deep-time Climate Change Impact on Marine Food Webs 





Lindos bay section, island of Rhodes, Greece @K. Agiadi

The aim of this project is to develop a quantitative model that can predict how the structure and functioning of marine food webs were affected by SST changes, using paleontological and paleoclimatic data. Present-day marine ecosystems, especially the eastern Mediterranean marine ecosystem (EMME), are affected by multiple stressors, such as climate change, biological invasions, and anthropogenic impacts. In contrast, the Pleistocene EMME was only affected by severe climatic oscillations, including warming periods that can be used as analogues of current and forecasted climate warming. Therefore, modeling the Pleistocene EMME food web will allow us to isolate the effect of climate warming on marine ecosystems. 

Karpathos Island fieldtrip @Antonia Porz

Team

Konstantina Agiadi - University of Vienna, Austria (PI)

Frédéric Quillévéré - Université Claude Bernard Lyon 1, France 

Efterpi Koskeridou & Danae Thivaiou - National and Kapodistrian University of Athens, Greece 

Iuliana Vasiliev - Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre, Germany 

Marta Coll - Instituto de Ciencias del Mar, CSIC, Barcelona, Spain

Masters students

Theo Sommeville - Thesis title: "Mediterranean fish biomass changes across Pleistocene glacial–interglacial transitions"

Antoine Vite - Thesis title:"Changes in foraminifera biomass in the Eastern Mediterranean across the Early–Middle Pleistocene Transition"

Antonia Porz - Thesis title:"Mollusc size and metabolic rate changes across Pleistocene glacial–interglacial transitions in the eastern Mediterranean"

Nadine Plata Klingler - Thesis title: "Modelling the Pleistocene pelagic food web of the Eastern Mediterranean"

Kobe Simoens - University of Ghent, Belgium (Intern)

Renata Lukić - University of Zagreb, Croatia (Intern)