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，但这些影响直到最近才与生态系统功能的局部变化有关，如初级生产和营养循环。这种联系可能会在不同的地理尺度上运作，因为已知影响当地捕食者机制的因素也随纬度而变化。捕食者如何局部影响生态系统功能的知识和捕食者-猎物相互作用发生的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，从而抑制了我们管理有价值的生态系统服务的能力。潮间带牡蛎礁提供了一个模型系统，以解决这一知识差距：它们发生在整个大西洋中部和海湾沿岸，它们包含一个类似的食物网组合跨越纬度梯度的捕食，资源供应和环境条件，它们强烈影响捕食者的影响，它们影响沉积物和营养循环，通过提高底栖-远洋耦合。本研究包括一系列标准化取样和实验研究，目的是：（1）调查牡蛎食物网结构、资源供应、环境条件和与礁功能相关的沉积物特性的地理模式;（2）确定影响底栖-中上层耦合的牡蛎生命率的地理变化;以及（3）实验性地检验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影响的相对重要性，以及这些影响如何在纬度上变化。它将提供一种机制性的理解，以了解一种重要的海洋基础物种所提供的有价值的生态系统服务的生态地理学变化的基础，它还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。这项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人员提供有价值的信息。通过促进四所主要研究型大学的研究小组之间的概念和方法思想交流，该项目已经并将继续在其研究人员及其未来的研究生和本科生中培养跨学科的专门知识。除了指导博士后，这项研究将准备至少三个研究生和三个本科生的科学生涯，让他们独立开发与该项目相关的项目。调查人员致力于指导不同教育水平的学生，他们将继续通过讲座，在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.