Collaborative Research: the influence of predators on community structure and resultant ecosystem functioning at a biogeographic scale

捕食者通过消耗和改变猎物的特征来构建生态群落，然而这些影响直到最近才与生态系统功能的局部变化（如初级生产和营养循环）联系起来。这种联系可能在不同的生物地理尺度上发挥不同的作用，因为已知的影响当地捕食者机制的因素也因纬度而异。关于捕食者如何局部影响生态系统功能的知识与捕食者-猎物相互作用发生的生物地理范围之间的不匹配抑制了对生态群落和生态系统之间联系的理解，从而阻碍了我们管理有价值的生态系统服务的能力。潮间带牡蛎礁为解决这一知识鸿沟提供了一个模型系统：它们遍布大西洋中部和墨西哥湾沿岸；它们在捕食、资源供应和环境条件方面具有相似的食物网组合；它们受到捕食者效应的强烈影响；它们通过加强底栖-远洋耦合来影响沉积物和养分循环。这项研究包括一系列标准化的采样和实验研究，以：(1)调查与珊瑚礁功能相关的牡蛎食物网结构、资源供应、环境条件和沉积物特性的生物地理模式；(2)确定影响底-上层耦合的牡蛎的生命速率如何在地理上变化；(3)通过实验研究消耗性和非消耗性捕食者对牡蛎礁群落及其提供的生态系统过程的相对重要性，以及这些影响如何在纬度上变化。它将为重要的海洋基础物种提供有价值的生态系统服务的生物地理变化的机制理解基础，也将促进对食物网中捕食者效应与依赖于它们的生态系统过程之间相互作用的理解。通过在生物地理背景下将捕食者效应与牡蛎礁的底-上层耦合联系起来，本研究将为负责恢复牡蛎礁和恢复生态系统服务的资源管理者提供有价值的信息。通过促进四所主要研究型大学的研究小组之间概念和方法思想的交流，该项目已经并将继续培养研究人员以及他们未来的研究生和本科生的跨学科专业知识。除了指导一名博士后外，本研究还将培养至少三名研究生和三名本科生独立开发与项目相关的项目，为他们的科学事业做好准备。调查人员致力于指导不同教育水平的不同学生群体，他们将继续通过讲座、各自机构的开放日活动以及广播、报纸和电视采访向公众传播结果。

Predators structure ecological communities by consuming and altering the traits of prey, yet these effects have only recently been linked to local variation in ecosystem functions such as primary production and nutrient cycling. Such linkages may operate differently across biogeographic scales because factors known to affect local predator mechanisms also vary with latitude. The mismatch between knowledge of how predators locally affect ecosystem functions and the biogeographic range at which predator-prey interactions occur inhibits understanding of linkages between ecological communities and ecosystems, and thus our ability to manage valuable ecosystem services. Intertidal oyster reefs provide a model system to address this knowledge gap: they occur throughout the mid-Atlantic and Gulf coasts; they contain a similar food-web assemblage across latitudinal gradients in predation, resource supplies, and environmental conditions; they are strongly influenced by predator effects; and they influence sediment and nutrient cycles by enhancing benthic-pelagic coupling. This research involves a series of standardized sampling and experimental studies to: (1) investigate biogeographic patterns in oyster food web structure, resource supplies, environmental conditions, and sediment properties associated with reef function (2) determine how the vital rates of oysters, which can influence benthic-pelagic coupling, vary geographically; and (3) examine experimentally the relative importance of consumptive and non-consumptive predator effects on oyster reef communities and the ecosystem processes they provide and how these effects vary latitudinally. It will provide a mechanistic understanding of the basis for biogeographical shifts in valuable ecosystem services performed by an important marine foundation species, and it will also advance understanding of the interactions between predator effects in food webs and the ecosystem processes that depend on them.By linking predator effects and benthic-pelagic coupling on oyster reefs in a biogeographic context, this research will provide valuable information to resource managers charged with restoring oyster reefs and recovering ecosystem services. By promoting the exchange of conceptual and methodological ideas among research groups at four major research universities, this project has already and will continue to foster interdisciplinary expertise among its investigators as well as their future graduate and undergraduate students. In addition to mentoring a post-doc, this research will prepare at least three graduate and three undergraduate students for scientific careers by having them independently develop projects related to the project. The investigators are committed to mentoring a diverse group of students across multiple educational levels, and they will continue to disseminate results to the public through lectures, open house events at their respective institutions, as well as radio, newspaper, and television interviews.