Collaborative Proposal: Using Organic Carbon Isotopes of Single Microfossils to Illuminate Proterozoic Eukaryotic Ecosystems

GSTDTAP

项目编号	1855092
	Collaborative Proposal: Using Organic Carbon Isotopes of Single Microfossils to Illuminate Proterozoic Eukaryotic Ecosystems
	Susannah Porter (Principal Investigator)
主持机构	University of California-Santa Barbara
项目开始年	2019
	2019-04-01
项目结束日期	2021-03-31
资助机构	US-NSF
项目类别	Standard Grant
项目经费	277038(USD)
国家	美国
语种	英语
英文摘要	Much about the early evolution of life on earth still remains a mystery, and while advances have been made in recent decades, major questions remain, especially about the relationships between biology and the rise of oxygen in the earth's atmosphere. Our proposal will measure organic carbon isotopes of microscopic fossils that represent our best window into the evolution of life before the rise of animals. These measurements will help us figure out where in the oceans early organisms were living and if early life could thrive in waters with little to no oxygen. This work will involve undergraduate students in every aspect of the research, analysis, and writing. We will create new geochemical and paleontological educational modules for K-12 and college educators, develop innovative organic geochemistry techniques that will be shared with the broader scientific community and add information on early fossil life to the open-access Paleobiology Database. While we have learned a significant amount about the Proterozoic Earth system in the last few decades, major questions remain, especially about the interplay between biology and the rise of atmospheric oxygen. One window into the biological record of the Proterozoic is via organic carbon isotopes, which track the isotope systematics of fixed carbon. However, these measurements are almost always done on bulk samples that represent the entire biological community time averaged into a sedimentary sample, which limits our ability to use these measurements to reconstruct short-term carbon cycle dynamics and to probe the structure of ancient ecosystems. Recent advances in NanoEA-IRMS now allow us to reliably measure the carbon isotopic composition of a single organic microfossil and compare that value to the bulk 13C. We seek to use this new technique to explore how organic carbon isotopes can illuminate two persistent unknowns in the Proterozoic Earth-life system: 1) What were the habitats and metabolisms of early eukaryotes? and 2) What can single microfossil carbon isotopes reveal about the controls on bulk carbon isotopes in the Proterozoic stratigraphic record and what do these records tell us about the Proterozoic Earth system?. We will approach these questions by analyzing bulk, kerogen and fossil organic carbon samples from four richly fossiliferous units that span the history of Proterozoic eukaryotes. The broader impacts of this proposal include continued development and refining of stable isotope analysis techniques, and integration of the Proterozoic microfossil record into the open-access Paleobiology Database. The proposal team will involve undergraduate students in all aspects of the research, and undergraduates will be meaningfully involved in data collection and interpretation. The team will also develop new educational activities for both high school and college-level audiences. The proposed work will include a postdoctoral fellow who will be mentored by all three PI's on research, professional development, and teaching. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
文献类型	项目
条目标识符	http://119.78.100.173/C666/handle/2XK7JSWQ/213412
专题	环境与发展全球科技态势
推荐引用方式 GB/T 7714	Susannah Porter .Collaborative Proposal: Using Organic Carbon Isotopes of Single Microfossils to Illuminate Proterozoic Eukaryotic Ecosystems.2019.