[Coral-List] ICRS 2020 session "How can innovative techniques to investigate calcification and its mechanism shed light into the past, present and future of coral reef organisms?” Theme 7: Scalable observations and technologies.

Alexander Venn alexandervenn at yahoo.com
Mon Aug 19 12:50:17 UTC 2019


Dear Colleagues,
The closing date for scientific contributions to ICRS 2020 is quickly approaching! (1st of September).
Please consider submitting to our session:

“How can innovative techniques to investigate calcification and its mechanism shed light into the past, present and future of coral reef organisms?”  (Theme 7: Scalable observations and technologies). See abstract below.

We hope that our session will be useful to the multi-disciplinary community working on the calcification of corals and other coral-reef calcifiers, calcification-linked physiology, paleo-oceanography and climate change.

Session chairs :

Alexander Venn, Sylvie Tambutte, Anton Eisenhauer and Virginie Chamard

Abstract:

Calcification is the process by which tiny coral polyps build the largest bioconstructions on the planet, the coral reefs. Despite the biological and geochemical importance of calcification and more than 100 years of investigation, our understanding of this process and its underlying mechanism still remains patchy. Calcification is sensitive to many aspects of global environmental change, and improving understanding of calcification is the key to a clearer vision of how coral reefs responded to past environmental change and how they will fare in future decades. Contemporary research on calcification is breaking exciting new ground in diverse disciplines such as biochemistry, physiology, material design and paleogeochemistry. Such studies address different levels of organization from the biomineral to the organism. To push the frontiers of understanding, new innovative approaches are being used to improve the culturing of biological material from cell to colony, and in the analysis of calcification processes. Among these are molecular and proteomic approaches; physiological techniques such as Ussing chambers, microelectrodes and in vivo confocal imaging; and geochemical or material science techniques including Raman spectroscopy, secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), nuclear magnetic resonance spectroscopy (NMR), cryo-scanning electron microscopy (SEM), laser-ablation techniques and synchrotron based x-ray diffraction or scattering microscopy. This session welcomes presentations that concern investigations applying these and other innovative approaches with or without classical techniques (buoyant weight, alkalinity anomaly, radioactive isotopes) that show the potential to shed new light into the processes driving calcification and growth. Description of the advantages and drawbacks/limitations of the techniques are also welcome. Corals are the focus of this session, however we also welcome presentations concerning other calcifying organisms associated with coral reefs.


Alexander A. VennSenior Scientist/Charge de Recherche
Centre Scientifique de Monaco
www.centrescientifique.mc
avenn at centrescientifique.mc




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