PRIDE: Drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity Rise and Demise
2015-2018: The Marie Curie Excellent Training Network PRIDE (Drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity Rise and Demise) is hosted in ten top institutes across Germany, the Netherlands, Romania and the United Kingdom. The PRIDE programme offers a unique opportunity in ultidisciplinary research involving climate, geology and biosciences. The team works on understanding the drivers of past biodiversity change and the current biodiversity crisis in so-called Pontocaspian biota. Currently the unique aquatic faunas of the Pontocaspian region (Caspian Sea, northern Black Sea, lakes in Turkey and the Balkans) are suffering dramatic decline. But the fauna has witnessed many biodiversity crises in its two million year history. By studying the development of lake basins and the faunas in the past two million years we want to learn what the drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity change are and what the outlook of the current biodiversity crisis is.
https://science.naturalis.nl/en/pride-programme/
Our group hosts 3 PRIDE projects carried out by Early Stage Researchers (ESRs):
ESR B3 Drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity Rise and Demise: satellite regions as source/sinks of Pontocaspian biota (Arthur Francis Sands)
ESR B4 Drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity Rise and Demise: molecular evolution of Pontocaspian biota (Justine Vandendorpe)
ESR C4 Drivers of Pontocaspian biodiversity Rise and Demise: modelling and predicting Pontocaspian biodiversity change and crisis (Matteo Lattuada)