Fundamental shifts in the Earth's ocean ecosystems and carbon cycle are currently underway due to anthropogenic processes, and the implications of these shifts are still poorly understood. Paleoceanographic records provide a unique opportunity to understand how ecosystems have responded to rapid climate change in the past. This work, led by a faculty member at the University of California at Davis, will utilize exquisite sediment records from Santa Barbara Basin (SBB) to reconstruct how seafloor biodiversity responded to changes in temperature and oxygenation during past time periods of rapid warming. This project builds upon the recent discovery that a wide variety of invertebrate taxonomic groups, including arthropods, molluscs, and echinoderms, are abundantly preserved in SBB sediments, and thus can be directly compared to more established records of climate change. The investigations of sedimentary communities will focus on three areas:
1) modern fauna, using recently collected box cores that span 300-1200m on the California margin, 2) a depth transect of cores from SBB spanning the deglaciation, the most abrupt climate change in recent geologic history, and 3) Mid-Pleistocene sediment records that have provided evidence of pervasive millennial-scale climate change throughout the past 1 Ma.
A key to understanding the complexities of climate change impacts on ocean environments is the synthesis of biological, geological, chemical and physical information. This research will directly tackle that integration, and be combined with an effort to educate future math and science teachers and K-12 students by collaborating with the successful UC Davis Math and Science Teaching (MAST) program. Each year, MAST students will develop, test, and modify climate science curriculum during the fall, which will then be utilized for visiting classrooms the following spring. Summer Fellowships will provide full financial support for MAST students (2/year) to take summer intensive field courses at Bodega Marine Laboratory (BML) and complete independent research projects. At the completion of their MAST Fellowship, students will utilize their independent research projects and data as inspiration for the next round of MAST-student led curriculum development.
