Project title: Response of mid-Paleozoic faunal communities to significant environmental changes: a study of the Mulde, Lau, Choteč events from the Prague Basin
Project number: 23-06198S
Donor: GAČR
Leader: prof. RNDr. Jiří Frýda, Dr.
Contact person: Ing. Kateřina Hrdinová
Project schedule: 2023-2025
Total CZU project budget: CZK 4 633 000.
Abstract:
The proposed project aims to quantitatively analyze the influence of three significant mid-Paleozoic environmental perturbations (including the collapse of the global carbon cycle, anoxic event, and global cooling) and global bioevents, namely the Mulde, Lau, and Choteč bioevents, on marine faunal communities of the Prague Basin using numerical methods of paleoecological analysis. The stratigraphic interval to be analyzed includes also long-term macro-ecological trend (so-called ‘Devonian nekton revolution’) affecting differently individual faunal groups. We intend to analyze (i) how individual faunal groups responded to environmental changes during the largest Phanerozoic perturbation of global carbon cycle and associated chemo- and bioevents, (ii) differences in the response of nearshore and offshore faunal communities to significant environmental changes, as well as (iii) differences in the response of faunal communities before and after the "Devonian nekton revolution". The project involves paleoecological, sedimentological, and geochemical methods.