SGER: Urgent Biodiversity Survey of two threatened cave systems in Mexico

SGER：对墨西哥两个受威胁的洞穴系统进行紧急生物多样性调查

• 批准号: 0827365
• 负责人: William Jeffery
• 金额: $ 0.53万
• 依托单位: University of Maryland, College Park
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-09-01 至 2009-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0827365&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: SGER; Urgent; Biodiversity; Survey; two

A SGER award is made to the University of Maryland to conduct an urgent biodiversity survey of two cave systems in the El Abra Formation in Mexico. Due to direct mining and collateral impact by sinking water tables, these caves are predicted to be destroyed or uninhabitable for cave fauna in the near future. This study will document the endangered cave invertebrate fauna and preserve and disseminate specimens for biological research. The survey will cover aquatic and terrestrial cave habitats in pristine and impacted areas of both caves. From a scientific perspective, caves offer a fertile study ground for a diversity of fields, including phylogenetics, taxonomy, biogeography, behavioral ecology, and developmental biology. Combined with the advances in molecular and genomics techniques, they are emerging as a promising model system for understanding the tempo and mode of evolution, and the convergence of structural, functional and behavioral changes across diverse taxonomic groups. Additionally, caves provide a multitude of ecological niches, whose relative stability and antiquity enable relict faunas to persist. Their presence often point to larger hydrological and geological events, and thus cave fauna can usefully inform disciplines other than biology.

一个SGER奖授予马里兰州大学进行紧急生物多样性调查的两个洞穴系统在埃尔阿布拉形成在墨西哥。由于直接采矿和地下水位下降的附带影响，预计这些洞穴在不久的将来将被破坏或不适合洞穴动物居住。这项研究将记录濒危洞穴无脊椎动物群，并保存和传播生物研究标本。调查将涵盖两个洞穴的原始和受影响地区的水生和陆生洞穴栖息地。从科学的角度来看，洞穴为多种领域提供了肥沃的研究土壤，包括生物遗传学，分类学，地理学，行为生态学和发育生物学。与分子和基因组学技术的进步相结合，它们正在成为一个有前途的模型系统，用于理解进化的克里思和模式，以及不同分类群体之间结构，功能和行为变化的趋同。此外，洞穴提供了大量的生态位，其相对稳定性和古老性使残余动物群得以持续存在。它们的存在往往指向更大的水文和地质事件，因此洞穴动物群可以为生物学以外的学科提供有用的信息。