Change in Gene Expression in a Forb and an Annual Grass in Response to Elevated CO2, Warming, Precipitation Increase and Nitrogen Deposition in a Mediterranean Annual Grassland.

萨默维尔依赖生态系统提供关键的商品和服务。 在未来几十年，生态系统将受到一系列新的人类影响，包括气候变化。为了预测这些变化对生物圈的影响，需要详细了解各种生态系统如何对全球变化参数作出反应。 该项目是一项大型、长期、跨学科研究的一个组成部分，即每年一次的地中海草原生态系统碧玉岭全球变化实验。 JRGCE的广泛目标是发展对生态系统变化的机械理解，以实现CO2升高、降水量改变、氮沉降增加和变暖的现实组合，并开发未来生态系统变化的预测模型。 该项目的这一部分的总体目标是提供一些深入了解植物的基本生理过程，有助于在这片草原生态系统的变化。 有了这个项目，工作将从目前的方法制定阶段转入数据收集阶段。 微阵列将用于测量两个主要物种，燕麦和Germinium dissectum的转录丰度。 将每年确定在表达方面对四个全球变化参数或其相互作用作出反应而出现重大变化的基因清单，并在项目的最后一年对四年的数据进行汇总分析。 这些数据将被挖掘，以确定与特定生物过程相关的基因是否在任何基因簇中过度表达。 此外，将用选定的基因或基因集和各种生态学（例如，净初级生产力），生物化学（例如，土壤磷酸酶活性），和土壤地球化学（例如，土壤氮化合物）参数，在相同的JRGCE图测量。选择微阵列技术是因为它是目前最好的方法，用于以基本上无偏的方式调查大量参数（基因）。从这些实验中，基因或基因组的表达模式密切反映了一个或多个全球变化的因素，将被确定和基因，诊断的一些生态和生物化学过程中测量的JRGCE图将被确定。这些基因组中的一些可能暗示了先前研究中没有涉及的生物过程的参与，这些研究集中在碳和氮代谢上。更广泛的影响：这一探索性项目预计将导致一些关于植物对全球变化因素的反应和生态系统一级的变化的具体假设，这些假设将在今后的实验中得到检验。 这项研究将包括培训和其他外联活动，由“卡内基外联协调员”协调，他将得到这笔赠款的部分支助。

SOMERVILLE ABSTRACTHumans rely on ecosystems for critical goods and services. In the coming decades, ecosystems will be exposed to a novel range of human impacts, including altered climate. To anticipate the consequences of these changes on the biosphere, detailed knowledge of how various ecosystems respond to global change parameters is needed. This project is a component of a large, long-term, interdisciplinary study, the Jasper Ridge Global Change Experiment (JRGCE), of an annual Mediterranean grassland ecosystem. The broad goals of the JRGCE are to develop a mechanistic understanding of ecosystem changes to realistic combinations of elevated CO2, altered precipitation, increased nitrogen deposition and warming, and to develop predictive models of future ecosystem change. The general goal of this portion of the project is to provide some insight into the underlying physiological processes in plants that contribute to ecosystem change in this grassland. With this project, the work will move from the current methods development phase to the data collection phase. Microarrays will be used to measure transcript abundance for two dominant species, Avena barbata and Geranium dissectum. Lists of genes showing significant changes in expression in response to the four global change parameters or their interactions will be determined yearly and, in a summary analysis of the data from four years, in the final year of the project. These data will be mined to identify whether genes associated with specific biological processes are over- represented in any of the gene clusters. In addition, covariance analysis will be performed with selected genes or genes sets and the various ecological (e.g., net primary productivity), biochemical (e.g., soil phosphatase activity), and biogeochemical (e.g., soil nitrogen compounds) parameters that are measured in the same JRGCE plots. The microarray technology was selected as it is the best currently available method for surveying a very large number of parameters (genes) in a largely unbiased fashion. From these experiments, genes or groups of genes whose expression patterns closely reflect one or more of the global change factors, will be identified and genes that are diagnostic for some of the ecological and biochemical processes measured on the JRGCE plots will be determined. Some of these gene sets may suggest the involvement of biological processes that had not been implicated in prior research, which has focused on carbon and nitrogen metabolism. Broader Impacts: This exploratory project is expected to lead to a number of specific hypotheses about plant responses and ecosystem level changes to global change factors, which will be tested in future experiments. The research will involve training and other outreach activities that will be coordinated by the "Carnegie Outreach Coordinator", who will be supported in part by this grant.