TERRAFORM

Project name: TERRAFORM 

PI name: Professor Jennifer McElwain 

Research team Christos Chondrogiannis (post-doc), William Matthaeus (post-doc), Katie O’Dea (research assistant), Robin Noble (MSc, research assistant), Dylan Mc Ginty (research assistant), Ellen Colligan (intern), Roisin Doliver (MSc student), Muhammad Siddiq (PhD candidate). 

Funders and project funding code (if applicable):  TERRAFORM -European Research Council (ERC Grant, ERC-ADG-2020-101020824). 

Project dates:  01/10/2021 - 30/09/2027. 

Summary: TERRAFORM project is studying how plants made our planet habitable over millions of years. Specifically, it explores plant life and the evolution of plant characteristics or ‘traits’ over the past 300 million years and how these influenced large-scale processes, such as the hydrological cycle and weathering. The project brings together concepts and data sources from modern-day ecology, paleo-Earth weathering and decomposition experiments, climate modelling and high-resolution analyses of fossil plants. It quantifies land plants’ impact on the carbon, nutrient and hydrological cycles in deep time. The findings will help scientists better understand biosphere impacts on Earth today. For the purposes of the TERRAFORM project, analytical chemical measurements are needed. Specifically, cation and anion concentrations and total organic carbon in the leachate and pore water have been measured using Inductively Coupled Plasma Optical Emission Spectroscopy (ICP-OES) and the Centre for the Environment’s ion chromatograph. ICP-OES was also used on digested plant samples to determine the concentrations of selected nutrients. Plant samples were further analysed using the lab's elemental analyser.