OCE-RIG: Causes and consequences of consumer pressure across latitude

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In this project, the principal investigator will conduct field experiments in sea grass ecosystems ranging from North to Central America testing hypotheses that explore the fundamental mechanisms that drive the latitudinal diversity gradient. Recent studies using a simplified model habitat demonstrate that variation in interaction strength, particularly consumer pressure, can be an important determinant of contemporary species diversity patterns across latitude. This project will translate these advances from a simplified model habitat to a complex natural ecosystem of conservation importance, seagrass beds. Seagrasses are critical foundation species that provide complex habitat for a rich biota, including commercially important species and a diversity of macroalgae that, along with the seagrasses, significantly contribute to coastal primary productivity and nutrient cycling. This ecosystem is among the most threatened in the world, yet how fundamental ecological interactions, such as consumer pressure, shape patterns of biodiversity in this system remains a central question. This project will explore the effects of consumer pressure on species diversity in a complex natural ecosystem across the primary global gradient, latitude. This project links field sites in North and Central America, and builds infrastructure for continued exploration of large scale ecological patterns and processes. Understanding how ecosystems operate across biogeographic scales is emerging as an exciting and transformative research avenue. To overcome methodological and logistical challenges of conducting standardized experiments across large scales, this project employs multiple experimental approaches to directly compare community dynamics of seagrass ecosystems in three regions spanning 30 degrees of latitude from the temperate zone to the tropics. Standardized consumer exclusion and exposure experiments will be conducted in New Jersey, Florida, and Panama using both artificial and natural seagrasses. Seagrasses, and the diverse communities of epiphytic sessile invertebrates and macroalgae that they support, will be studied to reveal the ecological importance of consumer pressure on ecosystem structure and diversity. Latitudinal gradients in consumer diversity, consumer activity, prey recruitment, and abiotic conditions will be explored as mechanistic underpinnings of this continental-scale phenomenon.This project will broaden participation of under-represented groups in the ocean sciences by using an established international research program as a platform for engaging, inspiring, and educating students at the middle school, high school, undergraduate, and graduate levels through direct intensive research training, mentoring, and hands-on field activities. Promoting diversity in science is a long-standing commitment of the PI, and she continues to mentor students of under-represented groups through programs at Temple University, her professional society, and local universities. By collaborating with programs at Temple University that inspire and train women and under-represented minorities to pursue careers in STEM fields, the PI will lead annual field trips for middle and high school students to Barnegat Bay, New Jersey (a study site for this project). Through hands-on activities, these students will help develop a long-term publicly-available data set for use as an educational tool and as a resource for research. The PI will continue to support outreach activities in the Philadelphia public schools through an established NSF GK-12 program, which serves a diverse population of local students.This project is supported under the NSF Ocean Sciences Research Initiation Grant (OCE-RIG) program, with goals to support novel research by early career scientists and increase the diversity of the U.S. ocean sciences workforce and research community. With OCE-RIG support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish themselves in an independent research career related to ocean sciences and broaden participation of under-represented groups in the ocean sciences.