CREST-PRF: Linking physiology and demography in the Eastern Mosquitofish Gambusia holbrooki

CREST-PRF：将东部食蚊鱼 Gambusia holbrooki 的生理学和人口统计学联系起来

• 批准号: 1720727
• 负责人: Alex Mercado-Molina
• 金额: $ 20万
• 依托单位: Mercado-Molina Alex E
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Fellowship Award
• 财政年份: 2017
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2017-12-01 至 2019-11-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1720727&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CREST; PRF; Linking; physiology; demography

The Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology-Postdoctoral Research Fellowship (CREST-PRF) track within the CREST program supports beginning CREST Center investigators with significant potential and provides them with training and research experiences that will broaden perspectives, facilitate interdisciplinary interactions and establish them in positions of leadership within the scientific community. This CREST-PRF project is aligned with the research focus of the CREST Center for Aquatic Chemistry and the Environment (CAChE) at Florida International University. The project will focus on how mercury (Hg) affects organisms' physiology, vital rates, and local population growth. The Everglades, a network of interconnected freshwater ecosystems that includes local areas contaminated by (Hg) and its methylated or organic form, methylmercury, will provide a natural laboratory for this study. The eastern mosquitofish, Gambusia holbrooki, will be used as a model species to document the demographic and population consequences of physiological stress induced by water contaminants (Hg). Since the eastern mosquitofish play a critical role in the Everglades food webs, this project will advance our knowledge and understanding of how human-induced contaminants affect aquatic biota. Findings from this study will be useful for designing conservation and restoration activities. The research will contribute to the postdoctoral training of a Latin American student, thus increasing the number of underrepresented minority candidates pursuing a career in STEM, an important goal of the CREST-CAChE. In addition, this research project will be integrated into the education and outreach program at the Center.The overarching goal of the research is to determine whether the organism's physiological response to environmental stress regulates individual and population performance. Although other studies have examined the demographic consequences of stress in aquatic organisms, studies considering multiple life-history traits (e.g. growth, survival, and reproduction) are scarce. Furthermore, research examining how local population dynamics are affected by variation in patterns of resource allocation due to physiological stress, are warranted. This study will also test the life-history trade-off hypothesis as the basis to understand species' adaptation to environmental conditions by measuring the relationship between organisms' physiological conditions and demographic and population performance. This project will address such gaps by measuring, both in the field and in controlled lab experiments, the demographic response of G. holbrooki to mercury-induced physiological stress. The demographic data (growth, survival, and reproductive output) will be used to develop stage-based population matrix models to estimate population growth rates under different physiological pressures. By combining empirical physiological data with demographic modeling, the proposed study will be among the first to test such a relationship directly. The outcomes of this study will provide quantitative evidence of the success (or failure) of using physiological measurements as a biomarker to determine the effects of water contaminants in the demography and life-history traits of aquatic organisms.

CREST项目中的科学和技术卓越研究中心-博士后研究奖学金(CREST-PRF)轨道为CREST中心具有巨大潜力的初学者提供支持，并为他们提供培训和研究经验，这些培训和研究经验将拓宽视野，促进跨学科互动，并使他们在科学界处于领导地位。这个CREST-PRF项目与佛罗里达国际大学CREST水生化学和环境中心(CACHE)的研究重点是一致的。该项目将重点研究汞(Hg)如何影响生物体的生理、生命率和当地人口增长。大沼泽地是一个相互关联的淡水生态系统网络，包括被汞及其甲基化或有机形式甲基汞污染的当地地区，将为这项研究提供一个天然实验室。东部蚊虫，甘布斯霍尔布鲁基，将被用作模式物种，以记录由水污染物(汞)引起的生理压力的人口和种群后果。由于东部蚊虫在大沼泽地的食物网中扮演着关键角色，这个项目将促进我们对人类诱导的污染物如何影响水生生物群的认识和理解。这项研究的结果将有助于设计保护和修复活动。这项研究将有助于对一名拉丁美洲学生进行博士后培训，从而增加在STEM寻求职业生涯的人数不足的少数族裔候选人的数量，这是顶峰缓存的一个重要目标。此外，这项研究项目将被整合到该中心的教育和外展计划中。研究的首要目标是确定有机体对环境压力的生理反应是否调节个人和群体的表现。虽然其他研究已经研究了水生生物应激的人口统计学后果，但考虑多种生活史特征(如生长、存活和繁殖)的研究很少。此外，有必要研究由于生理压力导致的资源分配模式的变化如何影响当地的人口动态。这项研究还将通过测量生物的生理条件与人口和种群表现之间的关系来检验生活史权衡假说，以此作为理解物种对环境条件适应的基础。该项目将通过在野外和对照实验室实验中测量G.holbrooki对汞诱导的生理压力的人口反应来解决这种差距。人口统计数据(生长、存活和生殖产出)将被用来开发基于阶段的人口矩阵模型，以估计不同生理压力下的人口增长率。通过将经验生理学数据与人口模型相结合，这项拟议的研究将是第一批直接测试这种关系的研究之一。这项研究的结果将提供使用生理测量作为生物标志物来确定水污染物对水生生物的人口学和生活史特征的影响的成功(或失败)的定量证据。