Collaborative Research: Impact of Climate Warming and Ocean Carbonation on Eelgrass (Zostera marina L.)

合作研究：气候变暖和海洋碳化对鳗草（Zostera marina L.）的影响

• 批准号: 1061836
• 负责人: Mark Swingle
• 金额: $ 16.71万
• 依托单位: Virginia Aquarium & Marine Science Center Foundation, Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-03-15 至 2015-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1061836&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Impact; Climate; Warming

Intellectual Merit: The past few decades have accumulated mounting evidence of profound anthropogenic effects on fundamental biogeochemical processes across the planet, especially in coastal environments that support a diverse array of highly productive ecosystems including coral reefs, seagrass meadows, and estuaries. The ecological significance of seagrasses is largely due to the remarkable degree of adaptation they exhibit to a submerged aquatic existence. Despite numerous successful adaptations, however, seagrasses have high light requirements that make them vulnerable to anthropogenic disturbances. The paradoxical vulnerability results largely from their high reliance on dissolved aqueous CO2 for photosynthesis. The potential for rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations to have significant warming impacts on the global climate has long been recognized, but the potential impacts of the "other CO2 problem", also known as ocean acidification, have only recently begun to be appreciated. As with other impacts of climate change, the increased concentrations of dissolved aqueous CO2 [CO2 (aq)] in the oceans of the world will elicit both negative and positive responses among organisms, ultimately potentiating ecological losers and winners. This project will explore the response of eelgrass to increased CO2 (aq) within the context of a warming coastal ocean using a combination of manipulative experiments, physiological/biochemical investigations and mathematical modeling. The investigators hypothesize that rising CO2(aq) will increase the high temperature tolerance of plants by improving the Q10 response of photosynthesis relative to respiration, thereby leading to higher growth rates, improved survival of vegetative shoots at high temperature, and even flowering output and seed production. This project will investigate the key relationships between environmental parameters that have both negative (ocean warming) and positive (ocean carbonation) impacts on the light requirements and dynamics of carbon balance in these critically important marine angiosperms. By focusing on Chesapeake populations growing near the southern limit of eelgrass distribution on the Atlantic coast, the investigators will gain predictive insight into how climate change may alter the geographic distribution of this critically important species in other coastal environments that may be subjected to less temperature stress but similar levels of ocean carbonation.Broader Impacts: This work will provide training in plant physiology and biochemistry to the co-PI, Dr. Victoria Hill and will support the dissertation research of at least two graduate students over the course of the 4-year study. Collaboration with the Virginia Aquarium and Marine Science Center will facilitate the development of educational interpretation and programming from this project that will be specifically targeted to the 650,000 to 700,000 people that visit the Aquarium each year.

智力优势：在过去的几十年里，已经积累了越来越多的证据表明，人类活动对地球上的基本生物地球化学过程产生了深远的影响，特别是在支持各种高生产力生态系统的沿海环境中，包括珊瑚礁，海草草甸和河口。海草的生态重要性主要是由于它们对水下生活的适应程度。尽管有许多成功的适应，但是，海草有很高的光的要求，使他们容易受到人为干扰。这种矛盾的脆弱性主要是由于它们高度依赖溶解在水中的CO2进行光合作用。人们早就认识到，大气中二氧化碳浓度上升可能对全球气候产生重大的变暖影响，但“其他二氧化碳问题”，也称为海洋酸化，其潜在影响只是最近才开始得到重视。与气候变化的其他影响一样，世界海洋中溶解的CO2 [CO2（aq）]浓度的增加将在生物体中引起消极和积极的反应，最终可能导致生态输家和赢家。该项目将探索的响应，以增加二氧化碳（aq）的沿海海洋变暖的背景下，使用的操纵实验，生理/生化调查和数学建模相结合。研究人员假设，CO2（aq）上升将通过改善光合作用相对于呼吸作用的Q10响应来提高植物的高温耐受性，从而提高生长速率，改善高温下营养芽的存活率，甚至开花产量和种子产量。该项目将研究环境参数之间的关键关系，这些参数对这些至关重要的海洋被子植物的光需求和碳平衡动态具有负面（海洋变暖）和正面（海洋碳酸化）影响。通过关注在大西洋沿岸鳗草分布南部界限附近生长的切萨皮克种群，研究人员将获得预测性的见解，了解气候变化如何改变这一至关重要的物种在其他沿海环境中的地理分布，这些环境可能受到较少的温度压力，但海洋碳酸化水平相似。这项工作将提供植物生理学和生物化学的培训，以共同PI，博士维多利亚山，并将支持至少两名研究生在4年的研究过程中的论文研究。与弗吉尼亚水族馆和海洋科学中心的合作将促进该项目的教育解释和编程的发展，该项目将专门针对每年参观水族馆的65万至70万人。