RUI-LTREB Long-term coral reef community dynamics in St. John, USVI: 1987-2019

RUI-LTREB 美属维尔京群岛圣约翰珊瑚礁群落长期动态：1987-2019

• 批准号: 0841441
• 负责人: Peter Edmunds
• 金额: $ 44.69万
• 依托单位: The University Corporation, Northridge
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-05-01 至 2015-04-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0841441&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; LTREB; Long; term; coral

In an era of growing human pressures on natural resources, there is a critical need to understand how major ecosystems will respond, the extent to which resource management can lessen the implications of these responses, and the likely state of these ecosystems in the future. Time-series analyses of community structure provide a vital tool in meeting these needs and promise a profound understanding of community change. This study focuses on coral reef ecosystems; an existing time-series analysis of the coral community structure on the reefs of St. John, US Virgin Islands, will be expanded to 27 years of continuous data in annual increments. Expansion of the core time-series data will be used to address five questions: (1) To what extent is the ecology at a small spatial scale (1-2 km) representative of regional scale events (10's of km)? (2) What are the effects of declining coral cover in modifying the genetic population structure of the coral host and its algal symbionts? (3) What are the roles of pre- versus post-settlement events in determining the population dynamics of small corals? (4) What role do physical forcing agents (other than temperature) play in driving the population dynamics of juvenile corals? and (5) How are populations of other, non-coral invertebrates responding to decadal-scale declines in coral cover? Ecological methods identical to those used over the last two decades will be supplemented by molecular genetic tools to understand the extent to which declining coral cover is affecting the genetic diversity of the corals remaining. An information management program will be implemented to create broad access by the scientific community to the entire data set. The importance of this study lies in the extreme longevity of the data describing coral reefs in a unique ecological context, and the immense potential that these data possess for understanding both the patterns of comprehensive community change (i.e., involving corals, other invertebrates, and genetic diversity), and the processes driving them. Importantly, as this project is closely integrated with resource management within the VI National Park, as well as larger efforts to study coral reefs in the US through the NSF Moorea Coral Reef LTER, it has a strong potential to have scientific and management implications that extend further than the location of the study. Outreach activities will be developed to embrace graduate and undergraduate training opportunities in coral reef science, and a strong K-12 educational component will be designed to provide educational and research opportunities for children in California and St. John.

在人类对自然资源的压力越来越大的时代，迫切需要了解主要生态系统将如何反应，资源管理可以在多大程度上减轻这些反应的影响，以及这些生态系统未来可能的状态。对社区结构的时间序列分析提供了满足这些需求的重要工具，并承诺对社区变化有深刻的理解。这项研究的重点是珊瑚礁生态系统；对美属维尔京群岛圣约翰珊瑚礁珊瑚群落结构的现有时间序列分析将以每年递增的方式扩展到27年的连续数据。核心时间序列数据的扩展将被用来解决五个问题：(1)小空间尺度(1-2公里)的生态在多大程度上代表区域尺度事件(10‘S公里)？(2)珊瑚覆盖率下降对改变珊瑚宿主及其藻类共生体的遗传种群结构有什么影响？(3)定居前和定居后事件在决定小珊瑚种群动态中起什么作用？(4)除温度外，物理作用力(除温度外)在驱动幼年珊瑚种群动态中起什么作用？以及(5)其他非珊瑚类无脊椎动物的种群对珊瑚覆盖率十年来的下降有何反应？与过去二十年使用的方法相同的生态学方法将得到分子遗传工具的补充，以了解珊瑚覆盖率下降对剩余珊瑚遗传多样性的影响程度。将实施一项信息管理方案，为科学界广泛获取整个数据集创造条件。这项研究的重要性在于，描述独特生态环境下珊瑚礁的数据极其持久，而且这些数据具有巨大的潜力，可以用来理解综合群落变化的模式(即，涉及珊瑚、其他无脊椎动物和遗传多样性)，以及驱动这些变化的过程。重要的是，由于该项目与第六国家公园内的资源管理以及通过NSF Moorea珊瑚礁LTER研究美国珊瑚礁的更大努力紧密结合在一起，它具有极大的潜力，具有超出研究地点的科学和管理影响。将开展外联活动，以包括珊瑚礁科学方面的研究生和本科生培训机会，并将设计一个强有力的K-12教育部分，为加利福尼亚州和圣约翰的儿童提供教育和研究机会。