DISSERTATION RESEARCH: Mitigating with macrophytes: How plants buffer aquatic communities from anthropogenic perturbations

在当代生态学中，考虑人类活动对环境的影响变得越来越重要。然而，一个同样重要但经常被忽视的挑战是考虑生态相互作用如何减轻这些人类影响。在匹兹堡大学，我们已经开发了一个独特的和创新的研究计划，通过调查人为干扰和生态相互作用的相互影响，以解决这些当代挑战。具体来说，我们正在研究水生植物在多大程度上可以减轻人为压力的环境后果，使他们进入淡水生态系统。虽然我们之前的工作表明，水生植物大大减少了对生态重要的水生物种的致命影响的压力，我们仍然有一个贫穷的理解，这种现象是否转化为复杂的社区。 为了采取这一关键的下一步，我们将研究水生植物是否以及在多大程度上可以减轻单一暴露于高浓度的应激源与重复暴露于复杂的水生食物网中的低浓度的影响。这项研究将促进我们对人为扰动对生物群落的影响的理解，也将促进我们对大多数淡水群落的共同组成部分如何改变并可能减少这些影响的理解。除了进行这项研究并在科学界传播它，我们还参与了一些活动，以提高公众的环保意识。例如，我们经常与K-12学生合作，讨论我们的研究以及研究对保护的重要性。此外，我们在匹兹堡大学的生物学野外站，生态学的Pymatuning实验室，在那里初中和高中教师学习如何进行科学实验，并将其整合到课堂学习经验为学生举办年度教师研讨会。我们希望，我们的研究和努力，为学生提供科学的经验，在他们的职业生涯的早期将导致创新的新战略的发展，为保护环境的未来。

In contemporary ecology, it is becoming increasingly important to consider the effects of human activities on the environment. However, an equally important, but often overlooked, challenge is to consider how ecological interactions may ameliorate these human impacts. At the University of Pittsburgh, we have developed a unique and innovative research program that addresses these contemporary challenges by investigating the interactive effects of anthropogenic perturbations and ecological interactions. Specifically, we are examining the extent to which aquatic plants can mitigate the environmental consequences of anthropogenic stressors that make their way into freshwater ecosystems. While our prior work has shown that aquatic plants dramatically reduce the lethal effects of stressors to ecologically important aquatic species, we still have a poor understanding of whether this phenomenon translates up to complex communities. To take this critical next step, we will examine whether, and to what extent, aquatic plants can mitigate the effects of single exposures to high concentrations of stressors versus repeated exposures to lower concentrations in complex aquatic food webs. This research will advance our understanding of the effects that anthropogenic perturbations are having in biological communities, but also of how common components of most freshwater communities can alter, and potentially reduce, those effects. In addition to conducting this research and disseminating it within the scientific community, we also engage in a number of activities to promote environmental awareness with the public. For example, we frequently work with K-12 students, where we discuss our research and the importance of the research to conservation. Further, we run annual teacher workshops at the University of Pittsburgh's biological field station, the Pymatuning Laboratory of Ecology, where middle and high school teachers learn how to conduct and integrate scientific experiments into classroom learning experiences for their students. We hope that our studies and efforts to provide students with scientific experiences early in their careers will lead to the development of innovative new strategies for conserving the environment in the future.