REU Site: Coral Reef Biodiversity and Resilience on Little Cayman

珊瑚礁保持着海洋中最高的生物多样性，也是地球上最受威胁的生态系统之一。该奖项为位于小开曼群岛的中加勒比海洋研究所（CCMI）的本科生（REU）新研究经验计划提供资金。CCMI REU计划将在三年内为24名本科生提供一个独特的机会，探索对维持珊瑚礁生物多样性和恢复力至关重要的基本生态过程。参与的学生将有一个难得的机会在一个偏远的加勒比小岛上进行研究，当地发展压力很小。该地点的珊瑚礁正在从1998年厄尔尼诺事件中恢复，当时高海面温度导致全球范围内的珊瑚死亡。推动这一复苏的过程仍然未知。因此，这次可再生能源股提供了丰富和及时的机会，从多个角度密切审查生态系统的压力和恢复。该REU中的多学科科学导师团队正在研究旨在了解气候变化和海洋酸化（OA）以及对珊瑚礁的物理，化学和生态干扰的全球和地方威胁的主题。研究基本生物、群落和生态系统功能的实验和实地工作将是这项研究的组成部分。由REU本科参与者进行的研究将推进我们对驱动珊瑚礁在多个空间和时间尺度上对干扰的恢复力的过程的了解。该奖项由生物科学理事会共同资助。

Coral reefs maintain the highest biological diversity in the ocean and are also among the most threatened ecosystems on earth. This award provides funding for a new Research Experience for Undergraduates (REU) program at the Central Caribbean Marine Institute (CCMI) located on Little Cayman Islands. The CCMI REU program will provide a unique opportunity for 24 undergraduate students over three years to explore fundamental ecological processes critical to maintaining coral reef biodiversity and resilience. Participating students will have a rare opportunity to conduct research on a small remote Caribbean island with low local development pressure. Coral reefs at this site are recovering from the 1998 El Nino event during which high sea surface temperatures killed corals on a global scale. The processes that are driving this recovery are still unknown. Therefore, this REU affords rich and timely opportunities to closely examine ecosystem stress and recovery from a number of perspectives. The multidisciplinary team of scientific mentors included in this REU are researching topics aimed at understanding global and local threats from climate change and ocean acidification (OA), and physical, chemical, and ecological disturbances on coral reefs. Experiments and field work examining fundamental organismal, community and ecosystem functions will be integral to this research. The research conducted by REU undergraduate participants will advance our knowledge of the processes that drive coral reef resilience to disturbances on multiple spatial and temporal scales. Co-funding for this award is provided by the Directorate for Biological Sciences.