Collaborative Research: Larval behavior and supply-side ecology: Consequences of dissolved verus adsorbed chemical cues

供应方生态学强调了大规模物理海洋学过程在决定招募成功方面的作用。 虽然大规模的流动，如上升流，热锋，涌潮和风暴，可以间歇性地洗澡的海岸线与幼虫，他们并不完全负责本地化的变化，幼虫供应和解决。 这些较小规模的分布是由于，在一定程度上，寄生虫幼虫的行为和流动制度之间的相互作用。 不再被认为是一个新奇的严格与实验室静水条件，水性化学线索有越来越多的知名度，在幼虫定居在一系列的水动力制度和类群的致病因素。 然而，由于技术的限制，以前的研究只证明了溶解的信号分子对行为或沉降的潜在能力。 他们既没有提供更广泛的生态效应的机制基础，也没有实现实验和自然领域设置的溶解化学环境之间的动态相似性。 因此，一个合成的理论尚未出现在运输的水性化合物，幼虫的行为反应，和动态的流态之间的相互作用。 该研究项目探讨了化学信号分子在一个显着的生物系统中的生态相关性，其中替代线索类型和幼虫发育形态发生在单一物种和栖息地内。 此外，新的研究方法被用来克服许多经典的绊脚石幼虫定居研究。 使用可靠的化学标记的自然线索，非侵入性的方法，计算机/视频成像幼虫在移动的水，和控制线索从聚合物凝胶释放将促进水槽和现场研究，是动态缩放的化学和物理制度。 该研究涉及，首先，现场测量的自然发生的范围内溶解的线索浓度和流量变量。 其次，水槽研究量化的行为反应的幼虫的水性线索，并测试实验效果的两种线索类型（水性和表面吸附），单独和一起，对解决。 这些研究建立对第三个，最生态意义的研究组成部分，旨在解决如何溶解与吸附线索确定青少年在自然界中的分布，现场实验操作。 这项研究将水柱中的小尺度作用机制与床上的沉降、被动输运与主动行为以及化学生态学与流体动力学联系起来。 这项工作将有助于填补相对大规模的供应方过程和个别规模的海床勘探之间的差距。鉴于这项研究的高度跨学科性质，研究生和本科生将被激励跨学科线，拥抱新技术，因为他们发展成为年轻的科学家。 来自代表性不足群体的学生将通过加州大学洛杉矶分校的CARE和LEADS项目以及CSULA的CEA-CREST中心就业，并鼓励他们参加水槽和实地工作。 此外，该项目将促进两位博士教授之间的合作-授予机构（加州大学洛杉矶分校）和一个新的教师在主要本科大学（CSULA），有84%的少数民族入学率。

Supply-side ecology has punctuated the role of large-scale physical-oceanographic processes in determining recruitment success. Although large-scale flows, such as upwelling, thermal fronts, tidal bores, and storms, could episodically bathe the shoreline with larvae, they are not entirely responsible for localized variations in larval supply and settlement. These smaller-scale distributions are due, in part, to interactions between planktonic larval behaviors and the flow regime. No longer considered a novelty associated strictly with laboratory still-water conditions, waterborne chemical cues have growing visibility as causative factors in larval settlement over a range of hydrodynamic regimes and taxa. Because of technology limitations, however, previous studies have demonstrated only the potential capacities of dissolved signal molecules on behavior or settlement. They have neither provided a mechanistic basis for broader-scale ecological effects nor achieved dynamic similarity between dissolved chemical environments of experimental and natural field settings. A synthetic theory is therefore yet to emerge on interactions between the transport of waterborne compounds, behavioral responses of the larvae, and dynamics of the flow regime. This research project explores the ecological relevance of chemical signal molecules in a remarkable biological system, where alternative cue types and larval developmental morphs occur within a single species and habitat. Moreover, novel research methods are applied to overcome many classic stumbling blocks in larval-settlement research. Use of reliable chemical markers for the natural cue, non-invasive methods for computer/video imaging larvae in moving water, and controlled cue release from a polymer gel will facilitate flume and field research that is dynamically scaled for both the chemical and physical regimes. The research involves, first, field measurements of the naturally occurring ranges in dissolved cue concentrations and flow variables. Second, flume studies quantify behavioral responses of larvae to the waterborne cue, and test experimentally effects of the two cue types (waterborne and surface-adsorbed), separately and together, on settlement. These studies build toward the third, most ecologically meaningful research component, field experimental manipulations aimed at resolving how dissolved versus adsorbed cues determine juvenile distributions in nature. This research links mechanisms acting at small scales in the water column with settlement on the bed, passive transport with active behavior, and chemical ecology with hydrodynamics. The work will help fill the gap between relatively large-scale supply-side processes and individual-scale exploration of the bed. Given the highly interdisciplinary nature of this research, graduate and undergraduate students will be stimulated to cross disciplinary lines and embrace new technology as they develop into young scientists. Students from underrepresented groups will be employed through the CARE and LEADS Programs at UCLA and the CEA-CREST center at CSULA, and they will be encouraged to participate in both flume and field work. Further, this project will foster collaboration among two professors at a Ph.D.-granting institution (UCLA) and a new faculty member at a principally undergraduate university (CSULA), having 84% minority enrollment.