DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Effects of Ocean Acidification on the Physiology and Species Interactions of Crustose Coralline Red Algae

海洋生态系统是受全球气候变化威胁最大的生态系统之一。特别是沿海系统正在经历海水化学的快速变化，这给生活在那里的生物带来了压力。因此，评估从物种到生态群落对这些变化的潜在生物反应是很重要的。该项目将评估生活在海洋潮间带的珊瑚藻对与全球变暖有关的环境变化的生理反应。利用现有的藻类和食草动物之间食物网相互作用的历史信息，这项工作将进行实地和实验室实验，以量化藻类生理变化所预期的更广泛的生态变化。这些实验的结果将为基于环境因素的物种优势模型提供信息，并将用于预测东北太平洋沿海重要初级生产者的命运。进一步的目标是采集档案藻类和现代藻类的稳定同位素样本，以重建过去一个世纪的环境变化。随着气候变化对全球生态系统的影响，生态学家与其他环境领域的研究人员合作变得越来越重要。该项目应用生态、生理和生物地球化学技术来解决一个重要的环境问题，并促进历史上一直孤立的密切相关学科之间的互动和合作。这项研究将在对气候的生理反应和这种反应如何通过物种相互作用影响到群落水平的变化之间建立新的联系。这个项目对文化和环境都有影响。华盛顿州的沿海社区，包括部落国家，通过渔业在社会经济上依赖海洋生产力。这项研究的结果将用于提高当地对气候变化对沿海生物影响的认识。此外，还将与芝加哥谢德水族馆合作，向中西部人群解释气候变化对海洋生态系统的影响，这些人群与海洋的主要互动是通过公共水族馆进行的。通过更好地理解生态对气候变化的反应，这项研究将在使气候变化科学向普通受众普及方面发挥关键作用。

Ocean ecosystems are among those most at risk from global climate change. Coastal systems in particular are undergoing rapid change in seawater chemistry that stresses the organisms living there. It is therefore important to assess the potential for biological response to such changes resonating from the species level to ecological communities. This project will assess physiological responses of crustose coralline algae, which inhabit the marine intertidal, to environmental changes associated with global warming. Using available historical information on food web interactions between algae and their grazers, this work will conduct field and laboratory experiments to quantify the broader ecological changes expected from physiological changes in the algae. Results from these experiments will inform models of species dominance based on environmental factors and will be used to predict the fate of important primary producers in the coastal northeast Pacific Ocean. A further goal is to sample archival and modern algae for stable isotopes to reconstruct environmental change over the past century. As climate change alters ecosystems worldwide, it becomes increasingly important for ecologists to collaborate with researchers in other environmental fields. This project applies ecological, physiological, and biogeochemical techniques in tandem to address an important environmental problem and promotes interaction and collaboration between closely related disciplines that have historically remained isolated. This research will make new connections between physiological responses to climate and how such responses factor into community-level changes through species interactions. The impacts of this project are cultural as well as environmental. Coastal communities in the state of Washington, including tribal nations, depend socioeconomically on ocean productivity through the fishing industry. Results from this research will be used to increase local awareness about climate change effects on coastal biology. Additional public outreach will be conducted in collaboration with the Shedd Aquarium in Chicago to explain climate change impacts on marine ecosystems to a mid-western population whose primary interactions with the ocean occur through public aquaria. By better understanding ecological responses to climate change this research will play a pivotal role in making climate change science accessible to a general audience.