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正变得越来越重要。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改善这些人类影响。在匹兹堡大学，我们开发了一个独特的创新研究项目，通过调查人为扰动和生态相互作用的相互影响来应对这些当代挑战。具体地说，我们正在研究水生植物能够在多大程度上缓解进入淡水生态系统的人为压力对环境的影响。虽然我们之前的工作已经表明，水生植物极大地减少了应激源对具有生态重要性的水生物种的致命影响，但我们仍然对这种现象是否会转化为复杂的群落知之甚少。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在复杂的水生食物网中单一暴露于高浓度应激源与重复暴露于低浓度应激源的影响。这项研究将增进我们对人为干扰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和潜在地减少这些影响的理解。除了进行这项研究并在科学界内传播外，我们还参与了一些活动，以提高公众的环境意识。例如，我们经常与K-12的学生合作，在那里我们讨论我们的研究以及研究对保护的重要性。此外，我们还在匹兹堡大学的生物野外站--皮马图宁生态学实验室举办一年一度的教师研讨会，在那里，初中和高中教师学习如何进行科学实验，并将其融入学生的课堂学习体验。我们希望我们的研究和为学生在职业生涯早期提供科学经验的努力将导致未来为保护环境制定创新的新战略。

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.