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• 2013-2022close
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Variations in sea level have a great environmental impact. They modulate coastal deposition, erosion and morphology, regulate heat and salt fluxes in estuaries, bays and ground waters, and control the dynamics of coastal ecosystems. Sea level variability has importance for coastal navigation, the building of coastal infrastructure, and the management of waste. The challenges of measuring, understanding and predicting sea level variations take particular relevance within the backdrop of global sea level rise, which might lead to the displacement of hundreds of millions of people by the end of this century. Sea level measurement relies primarily on the use of coastal tide gauges and satellite altimetry. Tide gauges provide sea levels at fine time resolutions (up to one second), but collect data only in coastal areas, and are irregularly distributed, with large gaps in the southern hemisphere and at high latitudes. Satellite altimetry, in contrast, has poor time resolution (ten days or longer), but provides near global coverage at moderate spatial resolutions (10-to-100 kilometres). Altimetric sea level products are problematic near the coast for reasons such as uncertainties in applying sea state bias corrections, errors in coastal tidal models, and large geoid gradients. The complicated shoreline geometry means that the raw altimeter data have to either undergo special transformations to provide more reliable measurements of sea level or be rejected. Developments in GPS measurements from buoys are now making it possible to determine sea surface heights with accuracy comparable to that of altimetry. In combination with coastal tide gauges, GPS buoys could be used as the nodes of a global sea level monitoring network extending beyond the coast. However, GPS buoys have several downsides. They are difficult and expensive to deploy, maintain, and recover, and, like conventional tide gauges, provide time series only at individual points in the ocean. This proposal focuses on the development of a unique system that overcomes these shortcomings. We propose a technology-led project to integrate Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS i.e. encompassing GPS, GLONASS and, possibly, Galileo) technology with a state-of-the-art, unmanned surface vehicle: a Wave Glider. The glider farms the ocean wave field for propulsion, uses solar power to run on board equipment, and uses satellite communications for remote navigation and data transmission. A Wave Glider equipped with a high-accuracy GNSS receiver and data logger is effectively a fully autonomous, mobile, floating tide gauge. Missions and routes can be preprogrammed as well as changed remotely. Because the glider can be launched and retrieved from land or from a small boat, the costs associated with deployment, maintenance and recovery of the GNSS Wave Glider are comparatively small. GNSS Wave Glider technology promises a level of versatility well beyond that of existing ways of measuring sea levels. Potential applications of a GNSS Wave Glider include: 1) measurement of mean sea level and monitoring of sea level variations worldwide, 2) linking of offshore and onshore vertical datums, 3) calibration of satellite altimetry, notably in support of current efforts to reinterpret existing altimetric data near the coast, but also in remote and difficult to access areas, 4) determination of regional geoid variations, 5) ocean model improvement. The main thrust of this project is to integrate a state-of-the-art, geodetic-grade GNSS receiver and logging system with a Wave Glider recently acquired by NOC to create a mobile and autonomous GNSS-based tide gauge. By the end of the project, a demonstrator GNSS Wave Glider will be available for use by NOC and the UK marine community. The system performance will be validated against tide gauge data. Further tests will involve the use of the GNSS Wave Glider to calibrate sea surface heights and significant wave heights from Cryosat-2.

Methane is a powerful long-lived greenhouse gas that is second only to carbon dioxide in its radiative forcing potential. Understanding the Earth's methane cycle at regional scales is a necessary step for evaluating the effectiveness of methane emission reduction schemes, detecting changes in biological sources and sinks of methane that are influenced by climate, and predicting and perhaps mitigating future methane emissions. The growth rate of atmospheric methane has slowed since the 1990s but it continues to show considerable year-to-year variability that cannot be adequately explained. Some of the variability is caused by the influence of weather on systems in which methane is produced biologically. When an anomalous increase in atmospheric methane is detected in the northern hemisphere that links to warm weather conditions, typically wetlands and peatlands are thought to be the cause. However, small lakes and ponds commonly are overlooked as potential major sources of methane emissions. Lakes historically have been regarded as minor emitters of methane because diffusive fluxes during summer months are negligible. This notion has persisted until recently even though measurements beginning in the 1990s have consistently shown that significant amounts of methane are emitted from northern lakes during spring and autumn. In the winter time the ice cover isolates lake water from the atmosphere and the water column become poor in oxygen and stratified. Methane production increases in bottom sediment and the gas spreads through the water column with some methane-rich bubbles rising upwards and becoming trapped in the ice cover as it thickens downward in late winter. In spring when the ice melts the gas is released. Through changes in temperature and the influence of wind the lake water column mixes and deeper accumulations of methane are lost to the atmosphere. In summer the water column stratifies again and methane accumulates once more in the bottom sediments. When the water column become thermally unstable in the autumn and eventually overturns the deep methane is once again released although a greater proportion of it appears to be consumed by bacteria in the autumn. Lakes differ in the chemistry of their water as well as the geometry of their basins. Thus it is difficult to be certain that all lakes will behave in this way but for many it seems likely. The proposed study will measure the build-up of methane in lakes during spring and autumn across a range of ecological zones in North America. The focus will be on spring build-up and emissions because that gas is the least likely to be influenced by methane-consuming bacteria. However, detailed measurements of methane emissions will also be made in the autumn at a subset of lakes. The measurements will then be scaled to a regional level using remote sensing data providing a 'bottom-up' estimate of spring and autumn methane fluxes. Those results will be compared to a 'top-down' estimate determined using a Met Office dispersion model that back-calculates the path of air masses for which the concentration of atmospheric methane has been measured at global monitoring stations in order to determine how much methane had to be added to the air during its passage through a region. Comparing estimates by these two approaches will provide independent assessments of the potential impact of seasonal methane fluxes from northern lakes. In addition measurements of the light and heavy versions of carbon and hydrogen atoms in methane (C, H) and water (H) will be measured to evaluate their potential use as tracer for uniquely identifying methane released by lakes at different latitudes. If successful the proposed study has the potential to yield a step-change in our perception of the methane cycle by demonstrating conclusively that a second major weather-sensitive source of biological methane contributes to year-to-year shifts in the growth rate of atmospheric methane.

The shift from hunting and gathering to an agricultural way of life was one of the most profound events in the history of our species and one which continues to impact our existence today. Understanding this process is key to understanding the origins and rise of human civilization. Despite decades of study, however, fundamental questions regarding why, where and how it occurred remain largely unanswered. Such a fundamental change in human existence could not have been possible without the domestication of selected animals and plants. The dog is crucial in this story since it was not only the first ever domestic animal, but also the only animal to be domesticated by hunter-gatherers several thousand years before the appearance of farmers. The bones and teeth of early domestic dogs and their wild wolf ancestors hold important clues to our understanding of how, where and when humans and wild animals began the relationship we still depend upon today. These remains have been recovered from as early as 15,000 years ago in numerous archaeological sites across Eurasia suggesting that dogs were either domesticated independently on several occasions across the Old World, or that dogs were domesticated just once and subsequently spreading with late Stone Age hunter gatherers across the Eurasian continent and into North America. There are also those who suggest that wolves were involved in an earlier, failed domestication experiment by Ice Age Palaeolithic hunters about 32,000 years ago. Despite the fact that we generally know the timing and locations of the domestication of all the other farmyard animals, we still know very little for certain about the origins of our most iconic domestic animal. New scientific techniques that include the combination of genetics and statistical analyses of the shapes of ancient bones and teeth are beginning to provide unique insights into the biology of the domestication process itself, as well as new ways of tracking the spread of humans and their domestic animals around the globe. By employing these techniques we will be able to observe the variation that existed in early wolf populations at different levels of biological organization, identify diagnostic signatures that pinpoint which ancestral wolf populations were involved in early dog domestication, reveal the shape (and possibly the genetic) signatures specifically linked to the domestication process and track those signatures through time and space. We have used this combined approach successfully in our previous research enabling us to definitively unravel the complex story of pig domestication in both Europe and the Far East. We have shown that pigs were domesticated multiple times and in multiple places across Eurasia, and the fine-scale resolution of the data we have generated has also allowed us to reveal the migration routes pigs took with early farmers across Europe and into the Pacific. By applying this successful research model to ancient dogs and wolves, we will gain much deeper insight into the fundamental questions that still surround the story of dog domestication.

Oil crops are one of the most important agricultural commodities. In the U.K. (and Northern Europe and Canada) oilseed rape is the dominant oil crop and worldwide it accounts for about 12% of the total oil and fat production. There is an increasing demand for plant oils not only for human food and animal feed but also as renewable sources of chemicals and biofuels. This increased demand has shown a doubling every 8 years over the last four decades and is likely to continue at, at least, this rate in the future. With a limitation on agricultural land, the main way to increase production is to increase yields. This can be achieved by conventional breeding but, in the future, significant enhancements will need genetic manipulation. The latter technique will also allow specific modification of the oil product to be achieved. In order for informed genetic manipulation to take place, a thorough knowledge of the biosynthesis of plant oils is needed. Crucially, this would include how regulation of oil quality and quantity is controlled. The synthesis of storage oil in plant seeds is analogous to a factory production line, where the supply of raw materials, manufacture of components and final assembly can all potentially limit the rate of production. Recently, we made a first experimental study of overall regulation of storage oil accumulation in oilseed rape, which we analysed by a mathematical method called flux control analysis. This showed that it is the final assembly that is the most important limitation on the biosynthetic process. The assembly process requires several enzyme steps and we have already highlighted one of these, diacylglycerol acyltransferase (DGAT), as being a significant controlling factor. We now wish to examine enzymes, other than DGAT, involved in storage lipid assembly and in supply of component parts. This will enable us to quantify the limitations imposed by different enzymes of the pathway and, furthermore, will provide information to underpin logical steps in genetic manipulation leading to plants with increased oil synthesis and storage capabilities. We will use rape plants where the activity of individual enzymes in the biosynthetic pathway have been changed and quantify the effects on overall oil accumulation. To begin with we will use existing transgenic oilseed rape, with increased enzyme levels, where increases in oil yields have been noted; these are available from our collaborators (Canada, Germany). For enzymes where there are no current transgenic plants available, we will make these and carry out similar analyses. Although our primary focus is on enzymes that increase oil yields, we will also examine the contribution the enzyme phospholipid: diacylglycerol acyltransferase (PDAT) makes to lipid production because this enzyme controls the accumulation of unsaturated oil, which has important dietary implications. In the analogous model plant Arabidopsis, PDAT and DGAT are both important during oil production. Once we have assembled data from these transgenic plants we will have a much better idea of the control of lipid production in oilseed rape. Our quantitative measurements will provide specific targets for future crop improvements. In addition, because we will be monitoring oil yields as well as flux control we will be able to correlate these two measures. Moreover, plants manipulated with multiple genes (gene stacking) will reveal if there are synergistic effects of such strategies. Because no one has yet defined quantitatively the oil synthesis pathway in crops, data produced in the project will have a fundamental impact in basic science. By combining the expertise of three important U.K. labs. with our world-leading international collaborators, this cross-disciplinary project will ensure a significant advance in knowledge of direct application to agriculture.

This project will shed light on a key stage in the evolution of life on Earth. The advent onto land of limbed vertebrates (tetrapods) was an event that shaped the future evolution of the planet, including the appearance of humans. The process began about 360 million years ago, during the late Palaeozoic, in the early part of the Carboniferous Period. Within the 20 million years that followed, limbed vertebrates evolved from their essentially aquatic and fish-like Devonian predecessors into fully terrestrial forms, radiating into a wide range of body forms that occupied diverse habitats and ecological niches. We know this because we have an adequate fossil record of the earliest limbed vertebrates from the Late Devonian, contrasting with the terrestrial forms that lived significantly later in the Early Carboniferous, about 340 million years ago. It is also clear that a mass extinction event occurred at the end of the Devonian, following which life on land and in fresh water habitats had to be re-established. Unfortunately, the formative 20 million years from the end of Devonian times has remained almost unrepresented for fossil tetrapods and their arthropod contemporaries. Thus, we know little about how tetrapods evolved adaptations for life on land, the environments in which they did so, and the timing or sequence of these events. The evolutionary relationships among these early tetrapods and how they relate to modern forms are also unclear and controversial as a result of this lack of fossil information. The entire fossil hiatus has been called 'Romer's Gap' after the American palaeontologist who first recognized it. Now, for the first time anywhere in the world, several fossil localities representing this period have been discovered in south-eastern Scotland. They have already provided a wealth of new fossils of tetrapods, fish, invertebrates and plants, and our team is the first to have the opportunity to study this material and the environmental, depositional, and climatic context in which this momentous episode took place. We have a number of major aims. The existing fossil material will form a baseline for this study, but the project will augment this by further excavating the richest of the sites so far found and subjecting it to a detailed archaeological-style analysis. We will collect from other recently recognized sites and explore for further sites with relevant potential. The fossil material will be described and analysed using a range of modern techniques to answer many questions related to the evolution of the animals and plants. Not only that, using stratigraphical, sedimentological, palynological, geochemical and isotopic data, we will establish the conditions of deposition that preserved the fossils, the environments in which the organisms lived and died, and the precise times at which they did so. We will drill a borehole that will core through the entire geological formation in which these fossils have been found. Using this, we will integrate data from our fossil sites using the signals provided by the sedimentary record to build a detailed time line showing in which horizons the fossils were found, the age of each occurrence and their sequential relationship. We will compare and correlate our data with that from contemporaneous deposits in Nova Scotia, the only other locality with information sufficiently rich to be meaningful. Our data will allow us to infer changes to the environment and the evolutionary trajectories of the animals and plants during the deposition of this formation, covering the 20 million years following the end-Devonian mass extinction. Comparison with similar data for the Late Devonian will allow us to chart the changes around the time of the mass extinction, to infer its causes and consequences, and obtain a detailed record of exactly how changes to the environment correlated with changes to the fauna and flora.

Deep-sea sediments form a major reservoir in the global carbon (C) cycle and C burial in these sediments constitutes a major process that sequesters C on geological time scales. Organic matter sinking from surface waters is the main food source for deep-sea organisms, and their feeding and foraging activities control whether this organic C is recycled into the water column or buried in sediments ('carbon sequestration'). Food supply to the deep-sea benthos is reliant on phytoplankton growth in the euphotic zone, and changes in community composition, export flux or timing of bloom events will directly affect the supply to and turnover of POC at the seafloor and, subsequently, C sequestration. However, due to the remoteness of the deep-sea floor, our knowledge of the interplay between organic matter characteristics, benthic biodiversity and the early diagenesis of POC in the deep sea is very limited, and we can therefore neither reliably assess nor predict the consequences of climate change for this important ecosystem service. The detailed study of benthic C cycling in areas of strong natural fluctuations in POC flux characteristics, and/or pronounced climate-induced change in the pelagic environment, seems a promising way to gain urgently needed information on the potential impact of climate change on the cycling or burial of C in deep-sea sediments, while at the same time improving our understanding of the interplay between POM characteristics and benthic communities, and its function in the early diagenesis of POM. Sea ice is a unique feature of polar marine ecosystems and the fact that small temperature differences can have large effects on the extent and thickness of this sea ice makes polar marine ecosystems particularly sensitive to climate change. Indeed, major ecosystem shifts related to retreating sea ice have been reported from both the Arctic and Antarctic. Ice algae account for up to 25 % of the primary production (PP) in ice covered areas on the deep Arctic shelf, and even more in the Arctic Basin, and thus are likely to form an integral part of the diet of deep-sea organisms. Moreover, ice algal blooms differ considerably from phytoplankton in terms of timing and distribution, thus providing higher organisms with food when and where other food is scarce. Ice algae also contain very high concentrations of so-called "micronutrients", essential substances that many marine organisms can not synthesize themselves. The retreat of sea ice and subsequent loss of ice algae as food source is thus likely to significantly impact on deep-sea food webs and ecosystems. However, despite much speculation, very little information is available on the importance of ice algae as food for benthic organisms. We therefore propose to investigate the potential consequences of a climate-induced loss of ice algae (and possible shift to phytoplankton) as a food source for Arctic deep-sea food webs via two different approaches: A. Ice algae and phytoplankton differ in their bulk Carbon isotope signatures, as well as in the Carbon isotope signatures of certain essential fatty acids. We will thus use this difference in isotopic signature to trace the uptake of ice algal and phytoplankton biomass by benthic fauna. B. A series of in situ tracer experiments: we will label both ice algae and planktic algae with a tracer, add them to sediment cores obtained from the seafloor (so-called 'mesocosms'), and subsequently follow whether and how they are metabolized by the deep-sea organisms. This work will be carried out in the Canadian Arctic in collaboration with Professor Philippe Archabault from the University of Quebec, during field campaigns in the Gulf of St. Lawrence and the Beaufort Sea.

As people across the world live longer, there is a growing need to support active ageing so that the extra years of life can be lived as well as possible. The potential of technology to assist people in all aspects of their lives is increasingly being recognised. Ambient Assistive Living (AAL) technologies refer to items that people can use in their everyday lives to make life easier and help them manage their daily activities. To enable the maximum number of people to benefit from current and future AAL technologies requires not only a good understanding of the needs of older adults but also a comprehensive analysis of how they view technology, their attitudes towards using it and how they make decisions about purchasing and using technology. Social and cultural factors can influence these issues and so this project aims to work with older adults across three different countries to explore their needs, attitudes and behaviour towards novel technologies. The project team brings together experts in gerontology, engineering, occupational therapy and psychology from the UK, Canada and Sweden to work with older adults to address their current and future needs for technology to support them to live their lives as well as possible. The project comprises several complementary elements that will be carried out in parallel within the three countries. The first element is a user needs analysis to examine the older adults' requirements in relation to AAL technologies, including those people who need support with cognitive activities, physical activities or motor activities. The findings from this stage will determine the development of novel AAL technologies in the next stage to address various aspects of daily life, such as shopping or cooking, supporting people with activities they need to remember, such as taking medication and keeping in touch with people. These novel technologies will be piloted with older adults in each of the three countries to examine how they respond to and explore them to inform future developments. Additionally, we will look at how to support people to learn to use new technologies and incorporate them into their lives to help them live as well as possible.

Worldwide, seaweed aquaculture has been developing at an unabated exponential pace over the last six decades. China, Japan, and Korea lead the world in terms of quantities produced. Other Asiatic countries, South America and East Africa have an increasingly significant contribution to the sector. On the other hand, Europe and North America have a long tradition of excellent research in phycology, yet hardly any experience in industrial seaweed cultivation. The Blue Growth economy agenda creates a strong driver to introduce seaweed aquaculture in the UK. GlobalSeaweed: - furthers NERC-funded research via novel collaborations with world-leading scientists; - imports know-how on seaweed cultivation and breeding into the UK; - develops training programs to fill a widening UK knowledge gap; - structures the seaweed sector to streamline the transfer of research results to the seaweed industry and policy makers at a global scale; - creates feedback mechanisms for identifying emergent issues in seaweed cultivation. This ambitious project will work towards three strands of deliverables: Knowledge creation, Knowledge Exchange and Training. Each of these strands will have specific impact on key beneficiary groups, each of which are required to empower the development of a strong UK seaweed cultivation industry. A multi-pronged research, training and financial sustainability roadmap is presented to achieve long-term global impact thanks to NERC's pump-priming contribution. The overarching legacy will be the creation of a well-connected global seaweed network which, through close collaboration with the United Nations University, will underpin the creation of a Seaweed International Project Office (post-completion of the IOF award).

Diseases of the brain including neurological conditions, such as epilepsy, multiple sclerosis and dementia, and common psychiatric conditions such as depression and schizophrenia, have considerable personal, social and economic costs for the sufferers and their carers. Improving the tools at our disposal for quantifying brain function would help with diagnosis, choosing the right treatment for the patient and developing new, more effective, treatments. This proposal aims to develop a reliable non-invasive brain imaging method using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) that maps, across the whole human brain with a spatial resolution of a few millimetres, the amount of oxygen that the brain is consuming. The rate of oxygen consumption, known as CMRO2, reflects neural activity and can change through disease processes. It provides a marker of disease and treatment related alterations in brain activity. Our proposed method would also map the functional characteristics of brain blood vessels whose health is crucial for the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the brain. Until recently, it has only been possible to quantitatively map the human brain's metabolic energy use through positron emission tomography (PET), which relies on radioactive tracers. The application of such measurements is limited, as in order to minimise radiation doses, it cannot be applied many times in the same patients or healthy volunteers. This hampers the repeated study of disease or treatment progression and the study of normal brain development and aging. Our proposed method would avoid the use of ionizing radiation, would be cheaper than PET and more widely available, and would expand the applications of quantified CMRO2 mapping to more centres, leading to improved treatment targeting and potential healthcare cost savings. We have performed some initial tests that show our proposed method to be feasible. It relies on mapping simultaneously the flow of blood to each part of the brain and the oxygenation of the blood leaving each part of the brain. Necessary for the measurement is the modulation of brain blood flow and oxygen levels, achieved by asking volunteers to breathe air enriched with carbon dioxide and oxygen. These procedures involve the volunteer wearing a face-mask but are safe and well tolerated. Our proposed method should yield additional information describing cerebrovascular properties compared to other recently-proposed methods. This means that it would require fewer assumptions which may be not be invalid in the diseased brain, giving our approach a wider scope of application and offering potentially richer clinical information. This proposal optimises our method to ensure it is efficient and reliable for widespread research and eventually clinical use. We propose a close collaboration between physicists developing the neuroimaging methodology and clinical academic researchers who will help us to demonstrate its clinical feasibility in two common neurological diseases, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis (MS). About 70% of the project will be methodological development to optimise our image acquisition and data analysis strategy to yield accurate and repeatable measurements within about 10 minutes of scanning. The remaining 30% of the project will validate the method in groups of epilepsy and MS patients who volunteer to help us with our research. Validation will be performed by comparison with PET, the current 'gold standard.' The project will develop and benefit from partnerships with academic and industrial researchers in the UK and internationally. In particular, the work has good potential for application in the drug development industry, a strong industrial sector in the UK, for the development of new and effective compounds to treat psychiatric and neurological disorders. This project would help maintain the UK at the forefront internationally of neuroimaging research, a position it has long held and from which it has benefitted.

The Earth's surface is broken into numerous tectonic plates, which are continually moving. The movement of the plates relative to each other is the source for most earthquake activity on Earth, which is typically focussed into narrow fault zones where the plates collide, pull apart, or slide past each other. Within the fault zones the deformation in the upper 10-15 km of the Earth's crust is localised onto narrow fault planes. Earthquakes occur when the stresses on the fault planes caused by plate motions overcome frictional resistance, and these represent significant hazard for communities living in fault zones - in the first decade of the 21st century alone, earthquakes killed 700,000 people. In strike-slip fault zones, where plates slide past each other, earthquakes typically only break the upper crust. We know that the lower crust (deeper than 10-15 km) must be deforming continuously, because we can measure how the ground surface deforms between earthquakes. But because rock samples or other direct measurements cannot easily be obtained from these depths, we have a poor understanding of how the lower crust behaves and influences the loading of stresses in the upper crust to cause major earthquakes.We propose an inter-disciplinary project with the aim of understanding the earthquake loading cycle (how stresses build through plate motions and are released in earthquakes) along a major European fault, the North Anatolian Fault Zone (NAFZ) in Turkey. The NAFZ is a strike-slip fault comparable in length and slip rate to the San Andreas Fault in California. It crosses a densely populated region of northern Turkey and constitutes a major seismic hazard - over 1000 km of the fault ruptured during 12 large earthquakes in the 20th century. The western end of the NAFZ ruptured in two major earthquakes in 1999 at Izmit on 17 August and Düzce, 87 days later, killing more than 30,000 people. A seismic gap remains south of Istanbul, an urban centre of more than 10 million people, where there is ~60% chance of significant shaking within the next few decades (Parsons et al. 2000).We aim to measure the properties of the fault in the lower crust to set constraints on the earthquake loading cycle along the NAFZ. The project involves (i) a novel high-resolution seismic experiment aimed at resolving the fault zone structure at depth, (ii) geological analysis of an exhumed fault zone representative of the mid to lower crust under the fault, and (iii) analysis of satellite measurements of surface displacement. The results from these studies will be used to build computational models of the earthquake loading cycle. In this project we aim to explain how the movements of the tectonic plates interact with the fault zone and how this is affected by the lower crustal structure. This will ultimately contribute to better assessment of the seismic hazard associated with large fault zone. The resulting synthesis of the geophysical and geological data together with geodynamical modelling will guide future investigations for other major strike-slip fault zones.