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Validation of alternative marine calcareous skeletons as recorders of global climate change
www.vub.ac.be/calmar
Parent project: Research action SPSD-II: Second scientific support plan for a sustainable development policy, more
Funder identifier: EV/04 (Other contract id)
Acronym: CALMARS
Period: December 2000 till February 2005
Status: Completed

Thesaurus terms Carbonate biogenic deposits; Climate; Shells
Taxonomic terms: Bivalvia [WoRMS]; Echinodermata [WoRMS]
  • Koninklijk Museum voor Midden Afrika; Afdeling Mineralogie, more
  • Universiteit Antwerpen; Faculteit Wetenschappen; Departement Biologie; Onderzoeksgroep Systemisch Fysiologisch en Ecotoxicologisch Onderzoek (SPHERE), more
  • Vrije Universiteit Brussel; Faculteit Wetenschappen & Bio-ingenieurswetenschappen; Vakgroep Chemie; Analytical, Environmental and Geochemistry (AMGC), more
  • Université Libre de Bruxelles; Faculté des Sciences; Département de Biologie des Organismes; Centre Interuniversitaire de Biologie Marine (ULB - UMH); Unité de Biologie Marine (BIOMAR), more
  • Koninklijk Belgisch Instituut voor Natuurwetenschappen; Operationele Directie Taxonomie en Fylogenie; Afdeling Malacologie, more
  • Belgian Science Policy (BELSPO), more, sponsor
General context

Five Belgian Institutions (the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences: Department of Invertebrates (RBINSc); the Royal Museum for Central Africa, Section of Mineralogy, Petrography and Geochemistry (MRAC); Université Libre de Bruxelles, Laboratoire de Biologie Marine (ULB); Vrije Universiteit Brussel, Laboratory of analytical Chemistry and Laboratory of Isotope Geochemistry (VUB); University of Antwerp, Ecophysiology, Biochemistry and Toxicology Unit, Department of Biology (UA) have set up a project to validate the use of CALcareous MARine Skeletons as recorders of global climate changes.

Potential recorders have been selected among three taxa: sclerosponges, bivalves, and echinoderms, for their contrasted characteristics: lifetime, growth rate, and mineralisation features. Areas of interest spread from the North East Atlantic Ocean to the Caribbean.

Objectives

The potential as environmental recorders of sclerosponges, bivalves, and echinoderms is well known, and the originality of CALMARS rather resides in three new perspectives.

  • the comparative analysis of contrasted taxa will sustain the validity of the recorded global changes;
  • laser ablation technology will ensure day to seasonal resolution depending of the taxon used;
  • focus will go to a better understanding of the pathways of proxy incorporation and on the relative controls by environmental and physiological conditions, emphasising on reconstruction of sea surface temperature (SST), salinity, phytoplankton biomass and productivity, and trace metal content.

Methodology

CALMARS approach is based on a combination of field and laboratory work. Field work consists in regular samplings of each group at a few selected sites in both tropical and temperate settings (North Sea & Scheldt, Norway, Jamaica and Kenya) where long-term monitoring of environmental conditions is carried out to follow up the recording of seasonal variations in the skeleton. Single samplings along environmental gradients are also performed in order to assess the recording of latitudinal variations. Specimens preserved in museums will help to extend data in time and localities. Proxies studied are Mg, Sr, Ba, Cd, Mn, U, B, Pb, Zn and O13Ccarb, O18Ocarb, using laser ablation ICP-MS in order to gain a high time resolution. Effects of environmental parameters are tested for each group under experimental conditions (in situ with incubation chambers or in aquarium). Impact of ambient substrate concentrations and physico-chemical conditions are also studied in controlled in-vitro experiments, during which incorporation of proxy are followed after radioactive and stable isotope spiking to ascertain results obtained along naturally occurring gradients.

Link with International Programmes

Paleo-oceanographic studies of climate change to modern-day analyses of pollution impacts.

Expected results and/or products

CALMARS aims at improving and extending the records of global change in the oceanic domain with a peculiar interest for the climate databases. Through a network of biologists and geochemists of complementary experience, CALMARS intends to:

  1. better validate the existing proxies by a thorough experimental investigation of the physiological and environmental factors that interplay to control the proxy incorporation within the various existing mineralogical types of biogenic carbonates;

  2. refine the existing records by improving the recently developed analytical tools and generating very-high resolution records of the validated proxies;

  3. greatly enlarge the application scales of these proxies by a direct comparison of different biological taxa under contrasted tropical and temperate settings from the North Atlantic ocean.
    From this, CALMARS expects to generate robust high-resolution time series of several tracers which are of prime importance to better simulate the carbon cycle and will therefore be used by other research networks to understand present day global change and predict future changes;

  4. develop algorithms for climatic and environmental change from proxy records.

    Development of educational aspects from this research is planned by creating and regularly updating a web-site, describing the main lines of the research. A scientific film and/or a didactic CD-ROM produced by the pedagogic staffs from the two involved federal scientific institutions (IRSNB and MRAC) are also planned.
  • Gillikin, D.P.; De Ridder, F.; Ulens, H.; Elskens, M.; Keppens, E.; Baeyens, W.F.J.; Dehairs, F.A. (2005). Assessing the reproducibility and reliability of estuarine bivalve shells (Saxidomus giganteus) for sea surface temperature reconstruction: implications for paleoclimate studies. Palaeogeogr. Palaeoclimatol. Palaeoecol. 228(1-2): 70-85. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.palaeo.2005.03.047, more
  • Gillikin, D.P.; Dehairs, F.A.; Lorrain, A.; Steenmans, D.; Baeyens, W.F.J.; André, L. (2006). Barium uptake into the shells of the common mussel (Mytilus edulis) and the potential for estuarine paleo-chemistry reconstruction. Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 70(2): 395-407. https://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2005.09.015, more
  • Gillikin, D.P.; Steenmans, D.; Meng, L.; Haiteg, T.; Ulens, H.; Dehairs, F.A.; Baeyens, W.F.J.; Navez, J.; Andre, L.; Keppens, E.; CALMARs group (2004). Bivalves as environmental archives, in: Mees, J. et al. VLIZ Young Scientists' Day, Brugge, Belgium 5 March 2004: book of abstracts. VLIZ Special Publication, 17: pp. 51, more
  • Lorrain, A.; Paulet, Y.-M.; Chauvaud, L.; Dunbar, R.B.; Mucciarone, D.; Fontugne, M. (2004). d13C variation in scallop shells: increasing metabolic carbon contribution with body size? Geochim. Cosmochim. Acta 68(17): 3509-3519. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gca.2004.01.025, more
  • Mubiana, V.; Blust, R. (2007). Effects of temperature on scope for growth and accumulation of Cd, Co, Cu and Pb by the marine bivalve Mytilus edulis. Mar. Environ. Res. 63(3): 219-235. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.marenvres.2006.08.005, more
  • Gillikin, D.P. (2005). Geochemistry of marine bivalve shells: the potential for paleoenvironmental reconstruction. PhD Thesis. Vrije Universiteit Brussel: Brussel. 258 pp., more
  • Rosenheim, B.E.; Swart, P.K.; Thorrold, S.R.; Willenz, P.; Berry, L.; Latkoczy, C. (2004). High-resolution Sr/Ca records in sclerosponges calibrated to temperature in situ. Geology (Boulder Colo.) 32(2): 145-148. dx.doi.org/10.1130/G20117.1, more
  • Lazareth, C.E.; Vander Putten, E.; André, L.; Dehairs, F.A. (2003). High-resolution trace element profiles in shells of the mangrove bivalve Isognomon ephippium: a record of environmental spatio-temporal variations? Est., Coast. and Shelf Sci. 57(5-6): 1103-1114. dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0272-7714(03)00013-1, more
  • Chauvaud, L.; Lorrain, A.; Dunbar, R.B.; Paulet, Y.-M.; Thouzeau, G.; Jean, F.; Guarini, J.-M.; Mucciarone, D. (2005). Shell of the Great Scallop Pecten maximus as a high-frequency archive of paleoenvironmental changes. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 6(8): Q08001, more
  • Gillikin, D.P.; Lorrain, A.; Bouillon, S.; Willenz, P.; Dehairs, F.A. (2006). Stable carbon isotopic composition of Mytilus edulis shells: relation to metabolism, salinity, d13CDIC and phytoplankton. Org. Geochem. 37(10): 1371-1382. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.orggeochem.2006.03.008, more
  • Gillikin, D.P.; Lorrain, A.; Navez, J.; Taylor, J.W.; André, L.; Keppens, E.; Baeyens, W.; Dehairs, F. (2005). Strong biological controls on Sr/Ca ratios in aragonitic marine bivalve shells. Geochem. Geophys. Geosyst. 6(5): Q05009 (16 pp.). dx.doi.org/10.1029/2004GC000874, more
  • Lorrain, A.; Gillikin, D.P.; Paulet, Y.-M.; Chauvaud, L.; Le Mercier, A.; Navez, J.; André, L. (2005). Strong kinetic effects on Sr/Ca ratios in the calcitic bivalve Pecten maximus. Geology (Boulder Colo.) 33(12): 965-968. http://dx.doi.org/10.1130/G22048.1, more
  • Mubiana, V.; Qadah, D.; Meys, J.; Blust, R. (2005). Temporal and spatial trends in heavy metal concentrations in the marine mussel Mytilus edulis from the Western Scheldt estuary (The Netherlands). Hydrobiologia 540(1-3): 169-180. https://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s10750-004-7134-7, more
  • Willenz, P.; Berry, L.; Dehairs, F.A.; Baeyens, W.F.J.; Gillikin, D.P.; Keppens, E.; De Ridder, F.; André, L.; Verheyden, S.; Lorrain, A.; Dubois, Ph.; Ranner, H.; Blust, R.; Mubiana, V.K. (2006). Validation of alternative marine calcareous skeletons as recorders of global climate changes (CALMARS): final report. Belgian Science Policy: Brussel. 133 pp., more