Photo credit: Paolo Bisti
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PeriCarb-EFA: Effects of extreme flow changes on periphyton biofilm and carbon cycling in Alpine streams.
More and more we are assisting to catastrophic extreme climatic events at an unprecedented scale. Rivers drying up, extreme heat waves, extreme floods, are clear examples of a climate change scenario that is expected to be pervasive in the next years. Despite evidence of the increase in frequency and intensity of extreme events, the effects of the extreme oscillations between droughts and floods on streams carbon cycling are still uncertain. Alpine streams are important contributors of inland water carbon and changes that occur in alpine streams can profoundly alter downstream reaches affecting the global carbon budget and in turn exacerbate climate impact in the future. PeriCarb-EFA aims at understanding how periphyton biofilms community composition changes due to extreme flow change events and the reduction in the recovery time for the microbial community between events. It will link biofilm changes in community composition to changes in carbon cycling and in greenhouse gas emissions. By linking microbial ecology and carbon biogeochemistry changes in alpine streams, PeriCarb-EFA will inform on the impact of climate change on global carbon budgets. Funding: European Union's Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie grant agreement No 101105996. |