RAPID: Effects of PAH Exposure on Aquatic Plant Community Structure, Productivity, and Resilience as a Result of the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill

亚拉巴马的莫比尔-滕索三角洲是一个敏感的综合生态系统，陆地、淡水和沿海社区汇聚在一起，形成了一个过渡区，其特点是高生产力和生物多样性，使其在生态、经济和娱乐方面对海湾地区具有重要意义。该项目调查了深水地平线石油泄漏和多环芳烃（PAH）暴露对这一生物多样性热点地区本地水生植物群落的影响。研究人员掌握了9年的植物群落结构数据，他们将在“控制前后影响”设计中使用这些数据，以确定植物生产力和存活率如何受到预期的多环芳烃暴露梯度的影响;早期演替模式和群落弹性在该梯度上的差异;以及暴露阈值的存在，超过该阈值，植物群落无法恢复。由此产生的数据将被用来预测如何大规模的人为侮辱和自然环境变化影响水生植物群落在不同的空间和时间尺度。该项目的结果将为环境退化和生境丧失的更广泛影响提供基本的见解，为以后关于植物群落反应的基本和应用方面的工作以及恢复力和对压力敏感性的基本机制奠定基础。在这个为期一年的项目中，一名研究生和一名本科生将接受植物分类学，生理学，群落生态学和多元统计应用方面的培训。最后，从这项研究中产生的数据将是一个重要的贡献，植物群落保护和土地管理。

The Mobile-Tensaw Delta in Alabama represents a sensitive, integrated ecosystem where terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal communities converge to create a transition zone, characterized by high productivity and biological diversity, making it ecologically, economically, and recreationally important to the Gulf region. This project investigates the effects of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbon (PAH) exposure on native aquatic plant communities in this biodiversity hotspot. The investigators have 9 years of data on plant community structure in hand, and they will use these data in a Before-After-Control-Impact design to determine how plant productivity and survivorship are influenced by the anticipated gradient of exposure to PAHs; differences in early successional patterns and community resilience across this gradient; and the presence of thresholds in exposure beyond which plant communities fail to recover. The resulting data will be used to predict how large-scale anthropogenic insults and natural environmental variation affect aquatic plant communities over varying spatial and temporal scales. The results of this project will provide fundamental insight into the broader impacts of environmental degradation and habitat loss, serving as the foundation for later work concerning both basic and applied aspects of the plant community response, and the underlying mechanisms of resilience and susceptibility to stress. Over the course of this one-year project, one graduate and one undergraduate student will receive training in plant taxonomy, physiology, community ecology, and the application of multivariate statistics. Finally, data generated from this research will be an important contribution to plant community conservation and land management.