Two high profile research grants for Kate Hendry

07 Sep 2012

Dr Kate Hendry was awarded a Marie Curie Career Integration Grant, focussing on Barium cycling in the Antarctic and a Leverhulme Research Grant to study Southern Ocean Sponges. Details of the research projects can be found below. Further details about Kate's research can be found be clicking this link.

Southern Ocean Sponges: The link between biogeography and geochemistry (Leverhulme Research Project)

The Southern Ocean is a key player in the regulation of global climate, through the upwelling and formation of deep-water masses, the exchange of heat, carbon and nutrients.  Understanding the physical and chemical environment in the Southern Ocean is essential for our understanding of biogeographical distribution of marine organisms and the marine carbon cycle.  Our goal is to carry out a multidisciplinary study of Southern Ocean sponges.  We aim to provide taxomonic descriptions of over 500 sponge specimens collected in the Southern Ocean; assess biogeographical variation in assemblages, and the role of the environment in sponge distribution; and carry out geochemical analysis to assess further the silicon isotope variation between different individuals and taxonomic groupings, to improve our understanding of how sponges can be used as geochemical archives of past ocean chemistry. 

Barium Cycling in Antarctic Waters: Understanding Present and Past Ocean Processes (Marie Curie Career Integration Grant)

Ice core records show that atmospheric carbon dioxide (pCO2), an important greenhouse gas that drives and amplifies climate change, varies naturally over a range of timescales.  Biological productivity in the oceans is a major contributor to carbon drawdown, and an important factor controlling atmospheric pCO2.  The Southern Ocean is linked with these climatic events, in part due to upwelling and subduction of deep waters during which carbon and heat are exchanged with the atmosphere, and partly because it exerts a primary control on the distribution of nutrients to a large portion of the modern ocean.  The aim here is to further the understanding of oceanic carbon storage over a range of timescales in the region of the West Antarctica Peninsula, the region experiencing the most rapid atmospheric and oceanic warming in recent decades.  I will use components of the biogeochemical cycle of barium (Ba) to understand and investigate different aspects of organic and inorganic carbon storage.  The analyses will provide data suitable for testing hypotheses linking Southern Ocean circulation to global climate over a range of timescales, and linking the response in biogeochemical cycles to future climatic change.