Disentangling the palaeoproxy challenge for the Humboldt Current System and beyond

This collaboration will develop a new long-term partnership between the University of Stirling (UK) and the Millennium Institute of Oceanography at the University of Concepcion (Chile), the University of Herriot-Watt (UK) and Yale University (USA), bringing large scale oceanographic expertise together with microscale geochemistry and molecular biology expertise to understand the climate and biology of the past, present and future through applied molecular and geochemical analyses of the fossil-forming protists; planktonic foraminifera. This new collaboration is seeking funds for a pilot study that will be carried out by Masters student from Chile, who will come to the UK to carry out the molecular work, and move on to a PhD project. They will be the first person in Chile with the ability to carry out molecular analyses on the foraminfiera. We also aim to ground truth an important geochemical proxy and develop the techniques for utlising a single foram specimen for genotyping, metabarcoding and geochemical analysis to develop the genotype-specific regional proxies necesary for a global understanding of past climates.