Collaborative Research: Ocean Acidification: Impacts of evolution on the response of phytoplankton populations to rising CO2

合作研究：海洋酸化：进化对浮游植物种群对二氧化碳上升的反应的影响

• 批准号: 1540158
• 负责人: James Morris
• 金额: $ 27.43万
• 依托单位: University of Alabama at Birmingham
• 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: 2015-02-01 至 2019-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1540158&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Ocean; Acidification; Impacts

Intellectual Merit: Human activities are driving up atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations at an unprecedented rate, perturbing the ocean's carbonate buffering system, lowering oceanic pH, and changing the concentration and composition of dissolved inorganic carbon. Recent studies have shown that this ocean acidification has many short-term effects on phytoplankton, including changes in carbon fixation among others. These physiological changes could have profound effects on phytoplankton metabolism and community structure, with concomitant effects on Earth's carbon cycle and, hence, global climate. However, extrapolation of present understanding to the field are complicated by the possibility that natural populations might evolve in response to their changing environments, leading to different outcomes than those predicted from short-term studies. Indeed, evolution experiments demonstrate that microbes are often able to rapidly adapt to changes in the environment, and that beneficial mutations are capable of sweeping large populations on time scales relevant to predictions of environmental dynamics in the coming decades. This project addresses two major areas of uncertainty for phytoplankton populations with the following questions: 1) What adaptive mutations to elevated CO2 are easily accessible to extant species, how often do they arise, and how large are their effects on fitness? 2) How will physical and ecological interactions affect the expansion of those mutations into standing populations? This study will address these questions by coupling experimental evolution with computational modeling of ocean biogeochemical cycles. First, cultured unicellular phytoplankton, representative of major functional groups (e.g. cyanobacteria, diatoms, coccolithophores), will be evolved under simulated year 2100 CO2 concentrations. From these experiments, estimates will be made of a) the rate of beneficial mutations, b) the magnitude of fitness gains conferred by these mutations, and c) secondary phenotypes (i.e., trade-offs) associated with these mutations, assayed using both physiological and genetic approaches. Second, an existing numerical model of the global ocean system will be modified to a) simulate the effects of changing atmospheric CO2 concentrations on ocean chemistry, and b) allow the introduction of CO2-specific adaptive mutants into the extant populations of virtual phytoplankton. The model will be used to explore the ecological and biogeochemical impacts of beneficial mutations in realistic environmental situations (e.g. resource availability, predation, etc.). Initially, the model will be applied to idealized sensitivity studies; then, as experimental results become available, the implications of the specific beneficial mutations observed in our experiments will be explored.Broader Impacts: This interdisciplinary study will provide novel, transformative understanding of the extent to which evolutionary processes influence phytoplankton diversity, physiological ecology, and carbon cycling in the near-future ocean. One of many important outcomes will be the development and testing of nearly-neutral genetic markers useful for competition studies in major phytoplankton functional groups, which has applications well beyond the current proposal. An inherent component of the proposed work is the integration of education and outreach to provide advanced interdisciplinary training to undergraduate students, while involving both them and the PIs in community outreach and education related to ocean acidification. At MSU, undergraduate students will participate in bench work as well as computer modeling, and will therefore gain interdisciplinary research experience. Among other projects, these students will produce a simplified version of the ocean modeling software that may be implemented as an "app" for use with education and outreach programs. At least two additional undergraduates will be recruited to work on the project at Columbia and MIT, with a focus on broadening participation in STEM through hands-on training. Additionally, visits with secondary education institutes will be arranged to talk about ocean acidification and microbial "evolution in action." These visits will be facilitated by instructional resources focused on ocean acidification, microbiology, and evolution, which are available from two NSF STCs, BEACON (MSU) and CMORE (MIT/Columbia).

智力价值：人类活动正在以前所未有的速度推高大气中的二氧化碳浓度，扰乱海洋的碳酸盐缓冲系统，降低海洋的pH值，并改变溶解的无机碳的浓度和组成。最近的研究表明，这种海洋酸化对浮游植物有许多短期影响，包括改变碳固定等。这些生理变化可能会对浮游植物的新陈代谢和群落结构产生深远的影响，同时也会影响地球的碳循环，从而影响全球气候。然而，由于自然种群可能会随着其不断变化的环境而进化，导致与短期研究预测的结果不同，因此对该领域目前的理解的推断是复杂的。事实上，进化实验表明，微生物往往能够迅速适应环境的变化，有益的突变能够在与未来几十年环境动态预测相关的时间尺度上席卷大量种群。该项目通过以下问题解决浮游植物种群的两个主要不确定领域：1)现有物种容易获得哪些适应二氧化碳升高的突变，它们出现的频率有多大，以及它们对适应能力的影响有多大？2)物理和生态相互作用将如何影响这些突变扩展到站立种群？这项研究将通过将实验进化与海洋生物地球化学循环的计算模型相结合来解决这些问题。首先，养殖的单细胞浮游植物是主要功能群(如蓝藻、硅藻、球藻)的代表，将在模拟的2100年二氧化碳浓度下进化。从这些实验中，将估计a)有益突变的比率，b)这些突变带来的适合度收益的大小，以及c)与这些突变相关的次要表型(即，权衡)，使用生理学和遗传学方法进行分析。第二，现有的全球海洋系统数值模型将被修改，以a)模拟大气中二氧化碳浓度变化对海洋化学的影响，以及b)允许在现有的虚拟浮游植物种群中引入特定于二氧化碳的适应性突变。该模型将用于探索在现实环境情况下(如资源可获得性、捕食性等)有益突变对生态和生物地球化学的影响。最初，该模型将被应用于理想化的敏感性研究；然后，随着实验结果的可用，我们将探索在我们的实验中观察到的特定有益突变的含义。更广泛的影响：这项跨学科的研究将提供关于进化过程对不久的未来海洋中浮游植物多样性、生理生态和碳循环的影响程度的新的、变革性的理解。许多重要成果之一将是开发和测试用于主要浮游植物功能组竞争研究的近中性遗传标记，其应用远远超出目前的提议。拟议工作的一个固有组成部分是将教育和外联结合起来，为本科生提供跨学科的高级培训，同时让他们和私营部门主管参与与海洋酸化有关的社区外联和教育。在密歇根州立大学，本科生将参与板凳工作和计算机建模，因此将获得跨学科研究经验。在其他项目中，这些学生将制作海洋建模软件的简化版本，该软件可能会被实施为用于教育和推广计划的“应用程序”。哥伦比亚大学和麻省理工学院将至少再招募两名本科生参与该项目，重点是通过实践培训扩大对STEM的参与。此外，还将安排参观中学教育机构，讨论海洋酸化和微生物“在行动中的进化”。这些访问将由侧重于海洋酸化、微生物学和进化的教学资源促进，这些资源可从两个NSF STC获得，Beacon(MSU)和CMORE(麻省理工学院/哥伦比亚)。