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SFB 1211:  Earth - Evolution at the Dry Limit

Subject Area Geosciences
Agriculture, Forestry and Veterinary Medicine
Biology
Medicine
Term since 2016
Website Homepage
Project identifier Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 268236062
 
Water is the defining feature of the habitable Earth; it is essential for all life as we know it. Evolution of life in extremely water-limited environments, which cover significant portions on Earth, is poorly understood. Akin to life, water-driven processes leave unique marks on Earth’s surface. Mars is the only other planet known to bear the marks of water-driven surface processes, albeit fossil and of great age. The slow surface processes that may operate even in the virtual absence of liquid water are essentially unknown. What is evident is that transient episodes of increased water availability leave long lasting traces in extremely water-limited environments. Intriguingly those traces of bursts in Earth surface evolution have rarely been related to bursts in biological colonization/evolution, and vice versa, although both relate to the same trigger: water. The target areas of the CRC are the driest non-polar deserts on Earth (Atacama and Namib deserts), where both biota and Earth-surface evolution are predominantly limited by the availability of water. In doing this we aim to isolate the key fingerprints of biological activity and adaptation strategies at the (water) limit of the habitable Earth, and to characterize the Earth-surface processes that operate in the (virtual) absence of liquid water. In the 3rd funding period our goal is to understand and visualise the limits and pathways of biological colonisation and adaptation to aridity; we also aim to pinpoint thresholds of biological life concurrent to fluvial transformation of the landscape in relation to the temporal limitations of water, or in the form of moisture supply through atmospheric water vapour. Palaeoclimate and geological archives serve as a natural framework for identifying the timing and environmental triggers of adaptation and rates of change in the co-evolution of biota and Earth’s surface systems. The comparison of the two deserts (Atacama and Namib), based on biological and geological/climatic information provides the unique opportunity to identify thresholds and to study critical transitions that were either locally dominant or globally acting. The investigation of the multi-layered nature of life in arid to hyper-arid regions, in particular the identification of life and its origins and strategies for bridging extreme phases, will rewrite the current image of a lifeless and largely dead desert. In achieving these goals, we anticipate major contributions to emerging concepts on the evolution of the climate as well as the onset and variability of hyperaridity, the interplay between geographical barriers and species migration in response to climate change. species diversification in response to climatic and geological processes, evolutionary lag times, the evolution and functioning of bio(surface)crusts and to determine rates of Earth-surface processes.
DFG Programme Collaborative Research Centres
International Connection Austria, Chile

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Applicant Institution Universität zu Köln
Spokespersons Professor Dr. Tibor J. Dunai, until 6/2024; Professor Dr. Tony Reimann, since 7/2024
 
 

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