Flexible fouling control in marine organisms: Are antifouling defenses synchronized with or fine-tuned to colonization pressure?

外生作用-生物体在其他生物体上生长-在海洋系统中是至关重要的。寄主外表面的定植影响其与生物和非生物环境的所有相互作用，并已被证明可以塑造整个海洋群落。许多海洋大型生物已经进化出防污防御系统来控制其体表的表观生物。与类似的生物相互作用（如捕食者-猎物或宿主-寄生虫）相比，迄今为止，人们对防污防御是否或如何受到调节一无所知。这似乎具有选择性优势，防御的生产和部署是由需求（污染压力）或资源可用性（能源，食物）驱动的，就像其他防御一样。到目前为止，这种防污防御的生态调整尚未被探索，将构成本项目的主题。我们将描述一般污染压力的季节波动以及单个污染类群的发生和污染率。我们将进一步研究基生生物表面的“化学景观”，特别是在选定的宿主物种中，防污防御系统的组成部分是如何随季节变化的。然后，我们将分析污垢压力与防御部署之间是否存在同步。最后，我们将研究防御是否由污染压力引起和/或由资源的可用性控制。这些发现将有助于填补我们对海洋生态学一个核心特征的理解上的一个重要空白。

Epibiosis – the growth of organisms on other organisms – is paramount in marine systems. The colonization of a host’s outer surface affects all its interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment and has been shown to shape entire marine communities. Many marine macro-organisms have evolved antifouling defense systems to control epibiosis at their body surface. In contrast to similar biotic interactions such as predator-prey or host-parasite to date nothing is known about whether or how antifouling defense is regulated. It seems of selective advantage that the production and deployment of defenses be driven by demand (fouling pressure) or by resource availability (energy, food) as found for other defenses. Such an ecological tuning of antifouling defenses is unexplored so far and will constitute the topic of the present project.We will describe the seasonal fluctuations of fouling pressure in general and the occurrence and fouling rates of single fouler taxa. We will further investigate how the “chemical landscape” at a basibiont’s surface in general and the components of the antifouling defense systems in particular vary seasonally in selected host species. We will then analyse whether synchronization between fouling pressure and defense deployment exists. Finally we will investigate whether defenses are induced by fouling pressure and/or controlled by the availability of resources. The findings will help to fill an essential gap in our understanding of a central feature in marine ecology.