ERC Consolidator Grant · 2025
Quantifying the limits of early life through the biogeochemical phosphorus redox cycle
What limited the size of Earth’s early biosphere? Answering this question has critical implications for constraining the pace of early evolution and the habitability of other terrestrial planets. Previous studies have suggested that the early biosphere was limited by metabolic energy, specifically the supply of electron donors. This proposition implies that phosphorus (P) and nitrogen (N) – the key biolimiting nutrients today – were available in excess. However, current estimates of dissolved P in Precambrian seawater range over five orders of magnitude, and N fluxes are poorly quantified, prohibiting accurate reconstructions of biological limits on the early Earth. I propose to resolve…
From the public funding record at EU CORDIS. Describes the funded project, not the reviews below.