RAPID: Spatial scale of flowering and seed production in Posidonia oceanica - the influence of clonal structure

海草Posidonia Ocean anica是地中海沿岸优势栖息地形成的基础物种，是一种克隆种。该物种还通过其在稳定海岸线和巨大的初级生产力方面的作用提供额外的生态系统服务。在过去的一个世纪里，特别是在过去的50年里，海洋松草甸一直在收缩，这在很大程度上是由于人为因素，人们已经做出了相当大的努力来恢复退化的草甸。这些努力几乎总是涉及根茎的移植，假设草地的扩张和局部补充将通过营养生长发生。这些努力收效甚微。PI挑战了流行的假设，即这种克隆物种的有性繁殖在很大程度上对种群人口学和拯救不重要。它们将利用最近在地中海北部的几个地点大规模开花的海洋石油公司。其中一个地点的初步数据显示了海草群落内开花的空间格局。如果这些模式与通过遗传分析确定的克隆有关，那么这些知识可能对保护和恢复该物种的当地种群有很大帮助。它还将阐明一个基本问题，即有性生殖模式和无性生殖模式在长寿物种中的相对功能。像现在这样的开花事件既罕见又不可预测，这使这对这个项目来说是一个不同寻常的好机会。更广泛的影响：这项工作是在私人投资机构的指导下作为一个学生项目开始的，参与最初项目的两名女本科生将在这项建议中描述的研究中发挥主要作用，在适当的监督下并接受新的分子技术培训。研究结果将提供新的见解，对保护和恢复生物学非常有用。

The sea grass Posidonia oceanica, a clonal species, is the dominant habitat forming, foundation species in coastal areas of the Mediterranean Sea. This species also provides additional ecosystem services through its role in stabilizing shorelines and immense primary productivity. Over the last century and particularly over the last 50 years, P. oceanica meadows have been contracting, in large part due to anthropogenic factors, and there has been considerable effort directed at restoration of degraded meadows. These efforts have almost always involved the transplantation of rhizomes, under the assumption that expansion and local replenishment of meadows would occur via vegetative growth. These efforts have met with little success. The PIs challenge the prevailing assumption that sexual reproduction for this clonal species is largely unimportant to population demography and rescue. They will take advantage of a recent and on-going mass flowering of P. oceanica at several sites in the northern Mediterranean. Preliminary data from one of the sites show spatial patterns of flowering within the sea grass communities. If these patterns are related to clones, identified through genetic analysis, that knowledge could be of great help in conserving and restoring local populations of this species. It would also shed light on a fundamental question about the relative functioning of sexual and asexual reproductive modes in a long-lived species. Flowering events such as the ones now taking place are both rare and unpredictable, making this an unusually good opportunity for this project. Broader Impacts: This work began as a student project under the direction of the PIs, and the two female undergraduate students involved in the initial project will play a primary role in the research described in this proposal, under appropriate supervision and with new training in molecular techniques. Results will provide new insights that could be very useful in conservation and restoration biology.