More about EPOCA, from gattuso’s website:
"The EU FP7 Integrated Project EPOCA (European Project on OCeanAcidification) was launched in June 2008 with the overall goal toadvance our understanding of the biological, ecological,biogeochemical, and societal implications of ocean acidification (Fig.1). The EPOCA consortium brings together more than 100 researchers from27 institutes1 and 9 European countries. The budget of this 4 year longproject is 15.9 M€, including 6.5 M€ from the European Commission.
The research efforts of EPOCA are divided into four themes.
Theme 1 will focus on past and present spatiotemporal changes inocean chemistry and biogeography of key marine organisms.Paleo-reconstruction methods will be used on several archives,including foraminifera and deep-sea corals, to determine pastvariability in ocean chemistry (carbonate, nutrients, and trace metals)and to tie this variability to present-day chemical and biologicalobservations.
Theme 2 will quantify impacts of ocean acidification on marineorganisms and ecosystems. Molecular, physiological and ecologicalapproaches will be used to study climate-relevant biogeochemicalprocesses, including calcification, primary production and nitrogenfixation. Laboratory and field perturbation experiments will focus onkey organisms in terms of their ecological, biogeochemical, orsocioeconomic importance. The potential for adaptation a
nd acclimation will be assessed.
Theme 3 will improve biogeochemical, sediment, and coupledocean-climate models to better account for how ocean acidification willaffect ocean biogeochemistry and ecosystems. Special attention will bepaid to feedbacks of physiological changes on the carbon, nitrogen,iron, and sulfur cycles and how these changes will affect and beaffected by future climate change.
Theme 4 will synthesize results obtained in Themes 1, 2 and 3 for business leaders, policy-makers and the general public. It willevaluate uncertainties, risks and thresholds (“tipping points”) relatedto ocean acidification at molecular, cellular and organismal levels andfrom local to global scales. It will also assess the decrease in CO2emissions required to avoid these thresholds and describe the change tothe marine environment and Earth system, should these emissions beexceeded."
Visit gattuso’s website to continue reading. (Bolding added by us for easier reading.)
