Environmental Change Research Facility at BIOS

BIOS 环境变化研究机构

• 批准号: 1624380
• 负责人: Amy Maas
• 金额: $ 33.26万
• 依托单位: Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS), Inc.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2016-08-01 至 2018-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1624380&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Environmental; Change; Research; Facility; BIOS

The ocean ecosystem is a shared resource that provides food and oxygen while playing an important role in global cycles of carbon and nutrients. The oceans are, however, threatened by a number of human induced changes including increases in temperature, nutrients, CO2 and chemicals. In order to understand how the changing ocean environment influences the biology of marine organisms, scientists must run controlled experiments exploring the effects of many types of stressors, carefully quantifying their individual and combined effects. The Bermuda Institute of Ocean Sciences (BIOS; www.bios.edu ) - an independent U.S. not-for-profit organization and a Bermuda Registered Charity - is uniquely located on a seagrass and coral platform with easy access to the open ocean of the North Atlantic, providing the opportunity to perform manipulative experiments on a diverse array of organisms. A new Environmental Change Research Facility (ECRF) will be established at BIOS, initiating the capability for studies involving multiple environmental stressors associated with the effects of global climate change. This will consist of two environmental rooms, integrated into the pre-existing flow-through seawater, and CO2 exposure facilities that will allow for experiments at multiple temperatures. Many of the organisms of interest are small in size (i.e. juvenile coral through to bacteria), and many of the processes require specialized stains to visualize. Thus, the facility will also include a new microscope that will allow analyses at a broad range of sizes (petri dish to single cell) and that is capable of quantifying changes in organism development, calcification, and species composition. With the addition of both the environmental chambers and the microscope, the range of experiments that can be run at BIOS will be substantially expanded. BIOS hosts a large number of visiting scientists, and BIOS researchers participate in ongoing scientific collaborations with external scientists, many with NSF-supported research programs, such that the ECRF equipment will have a far reaching impact on the research capacity of the marine sciences community as a whole. The facility will also support the primary goal of the internships and courses at BIOS: to immerse students in experiential learning through research in the ocean sciences. This can be a seminal change for many students whose home institutions lack programs in marine science or the opportunity to conduct independent research. Education experiences at BIOS can influence decisions that determine STEM education and career trajectories, with students leaving our programs better prepared to pursue professional careers and/or graduate programs. The ECRF will provide opportunities to train undergraduate and graduate students in complex multi-stressor studies, fostering a next generation of scientists with the interdisciplinary skillset required to address the pressing questions of environmental change in the marine environment.One of the major objectives in modern biological oceanography is to understand how the myriad of co-occurring anthropogenic stressors influence marine organisms and determine how these will modify global biogeochemical cycles. The objective of this grant is to establish an Environmental Change Research Facility (ECRF) designed to test and quantify the effects of multiple anthropogenic stressors on the marine environment (including temperature, nutrients, CO2, low O2, and toxicants). Due to its unique location in the oligotrophic North Atlantic gyre, BIOS provides access to a broad array of marine systems, including open ocean, near-shore coral reef, seagrass and mangrove ecosystems. The accessibility of these biomes via BIOS?s fleet of research vessels is complimented by the presence of a flowing seawater laboratory and CO2 exposure system where manipulative experiments can be conducted. This grant supports the installation of two environmental rooms that, by providing both thermal stability for process studies and opportunities for controlled multi-stressor experiments, will substantially expand the types of research that could be pursued at BIOS by resident scientists, visiting researchers and students. Many of the organisms of interest ? planktonic zooplankton, calcifying foraminifera or algae, bacteria and viruses, and early-life stages of benthic organisms such as sea urchins and coral ? are quite small. In order to quantify and visualize the response of this wide size-range of organisms, the facility will also include a new microscope, capable of visualizing changes in organism development and calcification, as well as cell enumeration. This instrument will increase the in-house observational capabilities for both preserved and live imaging and provide the capacity to precisely control image positioning to allow for time lapse capture of growth, biomineralization and dissolution. With the addition of this instrumentation, scientists and visiting researchers will be in a position to address the pressing questions of how environmental parameters affect the function of marine organisms, including biomineralization, development, ageing, biogeochemical cycling, community composition, microevolution and subsequently ecosystem function and human health impacts. They ensure the continued success and growth of an already transformative program in microbial oceanography by expanding the capacity to execute and analyze process studies in a controlled environment. Paralleling the benefits to basic research, the ECRF facility will be available for use with student internships and BIOS courses. Since 2011, BIOS has hosted over 800 students annually, most of them from US institutions. The ECRF will provide opportunities to train undergraduate and graduate students to conduct and analyze complex multi-stressor studies, fostering a next generation of scientists with the interdisciplinary skillset required to address the pressing questions of environmental change.

海洋生态系统是一种共享资源，提供食物和氧气，同时在全球碳和营养循环中发挥重要作用。然而，海洋正受到许多人类引起的变化的威胁，包括温度、营养物质、二氧化碳和化学物质的增加。为了了解不断变化的海洋环境如何影响海洋生物的生物学，科学家们必须进行控制实验，探索多种压力源的影响，仔细量化它们的单独和联合影响。百慕大海洋科学研究所（BIOS; www.bios.edu）是一家独立的美国非营利组织和百慕大注册慈善机构，它独特地坐落在一个海草和珊瑚平台上，可以很容易地进入北大西洋的开放海洋，提供了对各种生物进行操纵实验的机会。将在生态系统研究所设立一个新的环境变化研究设施，开始有能力进行涉及与全球气候变化影响有关的多种环境压力因素的研究。这将包括两个环境室，集成到现有的海水流动中，以及二氧化碳暴露设施，可以在多种温度下进行实验。我们感兴趣的许多生物体积都很小（如幼年珊瑚到细菌），许多过程需要专门的染色来可视化。因此，该设施还将包括一台新的显微镜，它将允许在广泛的尺寸范围内进行分析（培养皿到单细胞），并且能够量化生物发育，钙化和物种组成的变化。随着环境室和显微镜的增加，可以在BIOS进行的实验范围将大大扩大。BIOS接待了大量的访问科学家，并且BIOS的研究人员参与了与外部科学家的持续科学合作，其中许多是nsf支持的研究项目，因此ECRF设备将对整个海洋科学界的研究能力产生深远的影响。该设施还将支持BIOS实习和课程的主要目标：通过海洋科学研究让学生沉浸在体验式学习中。对于许多学生来说，这可能是一个开创性的变化，因为他们的学校缺乏海洋科学课程或进行独立研究的机会。在BIOS的教育经历可以影响决定STEM教育和职业轨迹的决策，学生离开我们的课程后，可以更好地准备从事专业职业和/或研究生课程。ECRF将提供机会，培训本科生和研究生进行复杂的多压力源研究，培养具有跨学科技能的下一代科学家，以解决海洋环境变化的紧迫问题。现代生物海洋学的主要目标之一是了解无数共同发生的人为压力源如何影响海洋生物，并确定这些压力源将如何改变全球生物地球化学循环。这笔拨款的目的是建立一个环境变化研究设施（ECRF），旨在测试和量化多种人为压力源对海洋环境的影响（包括温度、营养物质、二氧化碳、低氧和有毒物质）。由于其在北大西洋少营养化环流中的独特位置，BIOS提供了广泛的海洋系统，包括公海、近岸珊瑚礁、海草和红树林生态系统。这些生物群落通过BIOS的可访问性？我们的考察船队配备了流动的海水实验室和二氧化碳暴露系统，可以进行可操作的实验。这笔拨款支持安装两个环境室，通过提供过程研究的热稳定性和受控多压力源实验的机会，将大大扩展BIOS可由常驻科学家，访问研究人员和学生进行的研究类型。我们感兴趣的生物体有多少？浮游动物、钙化有孔虫或藻类、细菌和病毒，以及海胆和珊瑚等底栖生物的早期生命阶段？都很小。为了量化和可视化这种大范围生物的反应，该设施还将包括一个新的显微镜，能够可视化生物发育和钙化的变化，以及细胞计数。该仪器将增加保存和实时成像的内部观测能力，并提供精确控制图像定位的能力，以便对生长、生物矿化和溶解进行延时捕捉。随着该仪器的增加，科学家和访问研究人员将能够解决环境参数如何影响海洋生物功能的紧迫问题，包括生物矿化，发育，老化，生物地球化学循环，群落组成，微进化以及随后的生态系统功能和人类健康影响。他们通过扩大在受控环境中执行和分析过程研究的能力，确保微生物海洋学中已经具有变革意义的项目的持续成功和发展。除了对基础研究的好处外，ECRF设施还将用于学生实习和BIOS课程。自2011年以来，BIOS每年接待800多名学生，其中大多数来自美国院校。ECRF将提供培训本科生和研究生进行和分析复杂的多压力源研究的机会，培养具有解决环境变化紧迫问题所需的跨学科技能的下一代科学家。