SSIDIATE

The significance of stable isotopes as dietary indicators in ancient terrestrial ecosystems

Coordinatore	UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL    more  Organization address address: TYNDALL AVENUE SENATE HOUSE city: BRISTOL postcode: BS8 1TH contact info Titolo: Mr. Nome: Vince Cognome: Boyle Email: send email Telefono: +44 117 3317575 Fax: +44 117 9250900
Nazionalità Coordinatore	United Kingdom [UK]
Totale costo	200˙049 €
EC contributo	200˙049 €
Programma	FP7-PEOPLE Specific programme "People" implementing the Seventh Framework Programme of the European Community for research, technological development and demonstration activities (2007 to 2013)
Code Call	FP7-PEOPLE-2010-IEF
Funding Scheme	MC-IEF
Anno di inizio	2011
Periodo (anno-mese-giorno)	2011-09-01   -   2013-08-31

 Partecipanti

#	participant	country	role	EC contrib. [€]
1	UNIVERSITY OF BRISTOL  Organization address address: TYNDALL AVENUE SENATE HOUSE city: BRISTOL postcode: BS8 1TH contact info Titolo: Mr. Nome: Vince Cognome: Boyle Email: send email Telefono: +44 117 3317575 Fax: +44 117 9250900	UK (BRISTOL)	coordinator	200˙049.60

Mappa

 Word cloud

Esplora la "nuvola delle parole (Word Cloud) per avere un'idea di massima del progetto.

 Obiettivo del progetto (Objective)

'Paleodietary reconstruction is an important component of palaeoecology, but evidence for diet of ancient organisms is very rare and mostly limited to indirect inference. Besides, our knowledge related to the trophic organization of extinct communities mostly relies on assumptions from morphofunctional studies. Contrary to living communities, quantitative assessment of the trophic relationships within a given extinct ecosystem remains virtually unexplored and represents a key to discuss ecosystem dynamics across major events that affected the biosphere through time. The current proposal will determine the diet of unstudied ancient organisms through chemical isotopic systems. Biological processes such as digestion, cell growth or enzyme production involve important isotopic fractionations of various elements assimilated through food consumption or water uptake. This observed shift between a food source (plants for example) and the consumer's organs is linked to the fractionation of stable isotopes during nutrient uptake into the intestinal cells. Here, the study will focus on the trophic chain hierarchy of large Cretaceous and extant terrestrial vertebrates involving : carbon, a consituent of mineralized tissue used for trophic inference, mostly in mammals; calcium, constituting up to half the apatite (the key mineralised constituent of bones and teeth) and for which preliminary investigations suggest a fractionation; magnesium, one of the most abundant element involved in metabolism and for which fractionation remains unexplored. The analyses will focus on tooth enamel apatite, the most susceptible body part to be preserved in the fossil record and to retain its pristine signal. The following project therefore intends to define appropriate proxies in living organisms that will serve as a basis to explore isotopic variability among the succession of ancient communities through time.'

Introduzione (Teaser)

EU scientists have set up a sophisticated extraction and analysis technique for magnesium and calcium compounds in tooth enamel. The research can be used to uncover the diets of extinct and present day animals.