The response of marine microplankton to climate changes

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One of the most challenging tasks in understanding current global change is the untangling and quantification of the involved components and processes. While several processes have been successfully modeled by treating the Earth mainly as a physical or chemical system, the quantitative characterization of global change in the biosphere, for example in the marine ecosystem, is lagging far behind. However, any assessment of future climate change requires knowledge of the full range of natural variability. Therefore, my research is designed towards gaining a better understanding of how climate change affects the marine ecosystem, particularly the marine microplankton. For example, little is currently known about how long-term and short-term climate variability affect the abundance, production, assemblage composition, diversity and evolution of marine microorganisms. During the next five years I will focus my research activities on determining how marine microplankton have been affected by rapid environmental changes such as the El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Monsoons in the modern ocean as well as during the Holocene. This research involves the analysis of climate archives such as laminated sediments from key localities that sensitively record these rapid climate changes (e.g., the Gulf of California, the Cariaco Basin, Equatorial Atlantic and the Arabian Sea). In addition, the standing stock and sedimentation of marine microplankton will be monitored over a time period of several years at key locations. The application of various recently developed cutting edge techniques and proxies most suitable for ultra high resolution analysis (e.g., temperature and salinity proxies based on coccolith morphology) guarantees high quality data and the knowledge obtained in this way will be essential in assessing the impact of anticipated future global warming on the marine ecosystem (e.g., altered primary productivity resulting in changed fish stocks and biodiversity).