Collaborative Research: Intertidal community assembly and dynamics: Integrating broad-scale regional variation in environmental forcing and benthic-pelagic coupling

合作研究：潮间带群落组装和动态：整合环境强迫和底栖-远洋耦合的大范围区域变化

• 批准号: 1458188
• 负责人: Philip Yund
• 金额: $ 35.59万
• 依托单位: Downeast Institute for Applied Marine Research and Education
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-02-15 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1458188&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Intertidal; community; assembly

Rocky intertidal habitats in the Gulf of Maine (GoM) provide a model system to examine the structure and dynamics of natural communities. Throughout the Gulf of Maine, the same species are often found in these habitats but community structure, dynamics and productivity differ markedly among 3 distinct regions (southern, central and northern GoM). Past influential work, conducted primarily in the southern and central GoM, focused on the local processes driving intertidal community structure but produced very different conceptual models of how these communities are structured. This project examines whether regional differences in rocky shore community processes are driven by differences in recruitment that are shaped by regional variation in temperature and food availability and nearshore coastal oceanography. This project will improve the understanding of how large-scale environmental forces interact with local processes to control the distribution of species and the structure and dynamics of these communities. Understanding the interaction between processes operating at different scales is fundamentally important to developing more reliable models that can be used to predict community dynamics. In addition, data resulting from this project will have important implications for regional dynamics in commercially important species and for ecosystem and fisheries management within the GoM. Students and postdoctoral researchers will be supported and trained as part of this interdisciplinary project. The overarching hypothesis of this project is that regional differences in community-level processes are driven by very different patterns of population connectivity and recruitment in a few key species and that these differences are ultimately caused by regional variation in temperature and food availability and mediated by physical larval transport processes. Hence, the project will test the following hypotheses with manipulative field experiments, field sampling, connectivity estimates, and integrative modeling: 1) Locally-dispersing species dominate dynamics in regions with a net export of planktonic larvae (Northern GoM), while species with planktonic larvae dominate the dynamics in regions with high settlement and extensive connectivity among populations (Southern GoM). 2) Settlement density of species with planktonic larvae increases from northern to southern regions in accord with regional variation in food availability. 3) Population connectivity varies greatly among regions, with regions differing in the degree to which they are self-seeded or serve as larval sources vs. sinks; self-seeding leads to relatively localized population dynamics in the middle portion of the GoM. 4) Patterns of population connectivity are driven by physical transport processes and can be represented by coupling basic larval behavior models with circulation models. At 18 different sites in the GoM across ~ 600 km, surveys will evaluate variation in recruitment, food availability and secondary productivity and experiments will assess community processes in wave-exposed and sheltered habitats. The project will use hydrographic, current profile, and larval vertical distribution surveys to collect data for coupled larval/circulation models. Population connectivity will be both modeled and empirically evaluated (for one species) using elemental fingerprinting. A spatially explicit metacommunity model will integrate across all project components and test the relative importance of regional and local processes in controlling community organization and dynamics.

缅因湾 (GoM) 的岩石潮间带栖息地为研究自然群落的结构和动态提供了一个模型系统。在整个缅因湾，这些栖息地经常发现相同的物种，但 3 个不同区域（缅因州南部、中部和北部）的群落结构、动态和生产力显着不同。过去主要在墨西哥湾南部和中部进行的有影响力的工作侧重于驱动潮间带社区结构的当地过程，但就这些社区的结构产生了截然不同的概念模型。该项目研究了岩石海岸群落过程的区域差异是否是由补充差异所驱动的，而补充差异是由温度和食物供应以及近岸沿海海洋学的区域变化所决定的。该项目将增进对大规模环境力量如何与当地过程相互作用以控制物种分布以及这些群落的结构和动态的理解。了解不同规模运行的进程之间的相互作用对于开发可用于预测社区动态的更可靠的模型至关重要。此外，该项目产生的数据将对重要商业物种的区域动态以及墨西哥湾内的生态系统和渔业管理产生重要影响。作为这个跨学科项目的一部分，学生和博士后研究人员将得到支持和培训。该项目的总体假设是，群落层面过程的区域差异是由几个关键物种的种群连通性和招募模式截然不同所驱动的，而这些差异最终是由温度和食物供应的区域差异引起的，并由物理幼虫运输过程介导。因此，该项目将通过现场操作实验、现场采样、连通性估计和综合建模来检验以下假设：1）局部分散的物种在浮游幼虫净出口地区（北部GoM）的动态中占主导地位，而浮游幼虫的物种在高沉降和种群间广泛连通性的区域（南部GoM）中占主导地位。 2）浮游幼虫物种的聚落密度从北到南增加，与食物供应的区域差异一致。 3) 不同地区的种群连通性差异很大，各地区自播或作为幼虫源与汇的程度存在差异；自我播种导致墨西哥湾中部地区相对局部的种群动态。 4）种群连通性模式由物理运输过程驱动，可以通过将基本幼虫行为模型与循环模型相结合来表示。在墨西哥湾约 600 公里范围内的 18 个不同地点，调查将评估补充、食物供应和次级生产力的变化，实验将评估暴露在波浪中和受庇护的栖息地的群落过程。该项目将利用水文、海流剖面和幼体垂直分布调查来收集幼体/循环耦合模型的数据。将使用元素指纹识别对种群连通性进行建模和实证评估（针对一个物种）。空间明确的元社区模型将整合所有项目组成部分，并测试区域和地方流程在控制社区组织和动态方面的相对重要性。