PROJECT HIGHLIGHTS

• Generate first and highly resolved multi-proxy climate and marine plankton ecosystem records from the unexplored North Sea Basin  
• Gain training in multi-proxy micropaleontological, ecological and geochemical techniques from internationally recognised experts using state of the art equipment 
• Expand your network through an international collaboration with IODP3 Expedition 507 scientists 

Overview

Modern environmental conditions and seasonal availability of food/nutrients drive the marine ecosystem variability1. Mid-latitudes form an important connection between low- and high-latitudes for recording impacts of evolving climatic conditions and its ecological effect. With the onset of major Northern Hemisphere Glaciation (NHG) at ~2.6 million years ago (Ma), the Earth transitioned from warmer late Pliocene conditions to the colder Pleistocene epoch with intensifying glacial-interglacial cycles as the icesheets grew to live longer and become larger. The North Sea Basin (NSB) contains extended sequence (~1.2 km) of palaeoclimate history of the Plio-Pleistocene, but it remains unexplored for palaeoenvironmental change due to absence of scientific drilling in the region2 (Figure 1). The International Ocean Drilling Programme (IODP3) Expedition 507 will recover the first such sedimentary sequence to investigate environmental and ecological changes in the NSB across evolving global climate of the Plio-Pleistocene. The sediments from the mid-latitude study Site (~55°N, 3°E) will generate new multi-proxy palaeoclimate records to assess changes in European hydroclimate as well as linkages between high and low latitude climate and ecosystem.  

The project’s team-members are selected to participate in the Expedition 507. You will be part of the extended team to help contribute to age model, continental hydrological change, upper ocean conditions (e.g. temperature, nutrients, stratification) and marine ecosystem (using foraminifera and/or coccolithophore) reconstructions across the cold and warm intervals of the early Pleistocene and late Pliocene (~2.8 to 2.0 Ma). Together these groups capture different upper-ocean habitats allowing changes in community composition and biogeography to be assessed alongside changing ocean conditions. New records will be interpreted in the context of the glacial-interglacial variability as icesheets grew for the establishment of NHG, with an unprecedented wealth of available data3. You will contribute to the Expedition’s preliminary stratigraphic framework and help refine it further for your study interval to generate bulk sediment geochemical record using X-Ray Fluorescence (XRF) and foraminifera (trace elements and oxygen and carbon isotopes) to infer changes in European palaeoclimate and upper ocean conditions respectively, across timescales. New data will help you put NSB records in the context of published high- and low-latitude climate data to assess regional climate-ecosystem change and address – how the shallow marine NSB climate and ecosystem evolved during the cold and warm climate conditions of the late Pliocene and early Pleistocene.  

Further details and How to Apply

Students should have a background in Earth science, geography, environmental science, chemistry or similar, and an enthusiasm for learning/contributing to palaeoclimate scientific exploration. Experience of labwork and interests in (in)organic geochemistry/micropalaeontology is highly desirable. The student will join a well-established team researching paleoenvironmental change at the Open University. If you would like to apply or require further information, please contact pallavi.anand@open.ac.uk.

To apply to this project:  

You should make your application via The Open University’s applications portal. If you do not already have an account for this portal, you will need to register your interest and will be prompted to create an account. As part of your application, you will need to provide: 

• A completed CENTA Studentship Application Form, downloadable from: CENTA Studentship Application Form 2027 
• A CV/resume outlining your most relevant qualifications, professional experience, and any prior research experience 
• Copies of your degree certificates (including translations if not in English) 
• Proof of English language competency (see international research student applications for further details) 
• Details of two academic referees who can comment on your ability to undertake a research degree 
• Please quote CENTA 2027-OU01 when completing the application form. 

 
 Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 6th January 2027.    

Project Highlights

• Decipher the glacial history of northwest Europe in the Plio-Pleistocene 
• Work with the IODP3 Expedition 507 Science Team on brand new core samples before anybody else. 
• Learn organic geochemical and palynology techniques 

Overview

The Plio-Pleistocene intensification of global glacial-interglacial cycles starting 3.6 Million years ago had a profound impact on global and regional climate, landscapes and ecosystems. The effects were particularly strongly felt in northwest Europe, where large ice sheets became a frequent visitor to the continent for the first time in many millions of years – waxing and waning with a rhythm paced by the astronomical metronome of Milankovitch cyclicity.  

Whilst we know much about the last glacial cycle the earlier history of glaciation in northwest Europe is much more poorly understood, not least because the most recent glaciation overrode, displaced and eroded the evidence of earlier glacials on the land, the sea, in cores.  

At the centre of the glacial action throughout the Plio-Pleistocene lay the 600 km long North Sea Basin, a depocenter which accumulated a 1.2 km thick sediment stack recording the history of the continent and its marginal ice sheets, glacial variability, and climate and ecosystem changes (see Figure below). Europe’s largest river systems fed into the basin, bringing with them of evidence of what was happening all across the European land mass. To date this extraordinary archive of glacial history has not been tapped, but in the Spring of 2027 the International Ocean Drilling Program’s Expedition 507 (IODP3 507) will for the first time recover full-depth sediments from the centre of the basin, allowing exploration of the full Plio-Pleistocene history of the continent at unprecedented temporal resolution. 

This project will use molecular- and pollen- fossils from the cores recovered by Expedition 507 to elucidate the glacial history of the circum-North Sea Basin. Using hyphenated techniques such as GC-FID, GC-MS and HPLC-MS the project will develop high temporal-resolution records of the evolution of the basin. Molecular fossil proxies will be used to record the climatic evolution of land and sea, the waxing and waning of sea ice, and the migrating sources of rivers feeding into the basin. These will be coupled to pollen records from Expedition 507 and surrounding land masses to track evolution of the landscapes, climate and ecosystems on land and sea at extraordinary detail. 

Further Details and How to Apply:

Students should have a background in Earth science, geography, environmental science, chemistry or similar, and an enthusiasm for learning/contributing to palaeoclimate scientific exploration. Experience of labwork and interests in (in)organic geochemistry would be helpful. The student will join a well-established team researching paleoenvironmental change at the Open University. If you would like further information, please contact marcus.badger@open.ac.uk. 

To apply to this project:  

You should make your application via The Open University’s applications portal. If you do not already have an account for this portal, you will need to register your interest and will be prompted to create an account. As part of your application, you will need to provide: 

• A completed CENTA Studentship Application Form, downloadable from: CENTA Studentship Application Form 2027 
• A CV/resume outlining your most relevant qualifications, professional experience, and any prior research experience 
• Copies of your degree certificates (including translations if not in English) 
• Proof of English language competency (see international research student applications for further details) 
• Details of two academic referees who can comment on your ability to undertake a research degree 
• Please quote CENTA 2027-OU02 when completing the application form. 

 
 Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 6th January 2027.    

Project Highlights

• Investigate how the Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) contributes to genome defence and environmental adaptation in the polar diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus. 
•  Combine epigenomics, allele-specific transcriptomics and functional perturbation approaches to uncover mechanisms underlying transcriptional plasticity in response to climate change. 
• Generate new insights into how a globally important Southern Ocean phytoplankton species maintains genome stability and resilience under environmental stress 

Overview

The polar diatom Fragilariopsis cylindrus (Fig 1) is a key primary producer in Polar Oceans and a model for studying microbial adaptation to extreme polar environments. Its genome features unusual architecture, including extensive transposable element (TE) content and nearly 25% highly divergent alleles that exhibit differential expression in response to environmental changes (Mock et al., 2017; Paajanen et al., 2017). These genomic traits likely contribute to its phenotypic plasticity, though chromatin-based regulatory mechanisms remain unclear. 

Polycomb Repressive Complex 2 (PRC2) deposits the repressive histone mark H3K27me3 and silences TEs across diverse eukaryotes, suggesting an ancient, conserved genome defence function (Hisanaga et al., 2023; Velanis et al., 2020). PRC2 also regulates allele-specific gene expression in plants, including allele-biased repression of imprinted genes in Arabidopsis thaliana (Zhang et al., 2018), indicating its potential role in controlling divergent allele activity. 

This project hypothesizes that PRC2 acts as an ancestral genome defence pathway in F. cylindrus by repressing TEs and regulating environmentally responsive divergent alleles, linking genome stability with adaptive transcriptional plasticity. The study will first map H3K27me3 distribution under climate-relevant stressors—ocean warming and acidification—to assess whether Polycomb targets TEs, divergent alleles, or conventional genes preferentially. Chromatin profiles will then be integrated with strand-specific RNA sequencing to examine whether allele-specific expression changes correlate with differential H3K27me3 marking. 

Functional significance of PRC2 will be tested via chemical perturbation, evaluating effects on TE expression, allele-specific transcription, cellular fitness, and stress responses. An optional extension will investigate interactions between DNA methylation and Polycomb repression at selected loci. 

By combining environmental biology, epigenomics, and functional genomics, this project aims to elucidate chromatin-based regulation’s role in genome stability, transcriptional plasticity, and environmental adaptation in a crucial polar phytoplankton species. The findings will enhance understanding of molecular mechanisms underpinning resilience to climate-driven changes in polar marine ecosystems. 

Further details and How to Apply

This interdisciplinary project combines expertise in molecular epigenetics, chromatin biology and marine phytoplankton genomics, and would suit candidates with backgrounds in biology, molecular biology, genetics, genomics, bioinformatics, marine science or environmental science. Through a collaboration between the DEEp lab (Open University) and the Mock Research Lab (University of East Anglia), the student will benefit from training in both epigenetic mechanisms of genome regulation and the genomics, ecology and climate adaptation of marine phytoplankton. If you are interested in finding out more about this project, please contact Christos Velanis (christos.velanis@open.ac.uk) or Thomas Mock (t.mock@uea.ac.uk). 

To apply to this project:  

You should make your application via The Open University’s applications portal. If you do not already have an account for this portal, you will need to register your interest and will be prompted to create an account. As part of your application, you will need to provide: 

• A completed CENTA Studentship Application Form, downloadable from: CENTA Studentship Application Form 2027 
• A CV/resume outlining your most relevant qualifications, professional experience, and any prior research experience 
• Copies of your degree certificates (including translations if not in English) 
• Proof of English language competency (see international research student applications for further details) 
• Details of two academic referees who can comment on your ability to undertake a research degree 
• Please quote CENTA 2027-OU13 when completing the application form. 

 Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 6th January 2027.    

In this project you will work with Adam Woodhouse and Pallavi Anand at The Open University, UK, Anshuman Swain from the University of Michigan, and Chris Lowery at The University of Texas at Austin, USA to reconstruct the global community response of plankton to the mass extinction event that wiped out the non-avian dinosaurs alongside lots of other clades!

The key objective will be to assess whether there was an asymmetrical pattern across the globe to the K-Pg, and your job will be to build the most complete spatiotemporal dataset ever conceived across this mass extinction event, and test this hypothesis.

The project will focus on computational analyses, but it can be shaped to the individual, with opportunities to collect and generate new data from sediment cores, as well as fieldwork.

If this sounds like something you or someone you know would be interested in, please do not hesitate to contact me at adam.woodhouse@open.ac.uk and I will be happy to answer any questions.

Applications must be submitted by 23:59 GMT on Wednesday 6th January 2027.  

All project and application details can be found at the following link:

2027-OU15 The cruellest spring: did seasonal asymmetry shape extinction and recovery across the Cretaceous-Palaeogene mass extinction event? – CENTA