Collaborative research: The effects of predator traits on the structure of oceanic food webs

合作研究：捕食者特征对海洋食物网结构的影响

• 批准号: 1829835
• 负责人: Casey Dunn
• 金额: $ 35.05万
• 依托单位: Yale University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1829835&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; research; effects; predator; traits

Food webs describe who eats whom, tracing the flow of energy from plants up to large animals. While many connections in food webs on land are quite familiar, there are large gaps in our understanding of ocean food webs. Closing these gaps is critical to understanding how nutrients and energy move through ocean ecosystems, how organisms interact in the ocean, and how best to manage ocean resources. This project will study ocean food web structure with a focus on siphonophores, an abundant group of predators in the open ocean that form colonies that range in length from less than an inch to more than one hundred feet. Siphonophores are known to be important predators within ocean food webs, but they are difficult to study because they live across great ocean depths and are gelatinous and fragile. The details of what they eat, as well as many other features of their biology, remain poorly known. This project will combine direct observations of feeding, genetic analysis of siphonophore gut contents, and stable isotope analyses to identify what different species of siphonophores eat. This will provide a new understanding of how the structure of food webs arise, aiding in our ability to predict future changes to food webs as the global climate shifts. Siphonophores feed in a unique manner--they have highly specialized tentacles that are used solely for capturing prey--thus, the prey captured is determined largely by the anatomy and function of these tentacles. The project will describe these tentacles, reconstruct their evolutionary history, and investigate how evolutionary shifts in tentacle structure have led to changes in diet. This project will train one PhD student, one Master's student, a postdoc, and undergraduate students, including individuals of underrepresented groups. This project will support the production of scientifically rigorous yet engaging videos, foster the expansion of a citizen-science program, and create K-12 teaching modules.This project will advance three scientific aims: First, it will identify the diet of a diverse range of siphonophores using DNA metabarcoding of gut contents and prey field, remotely operated vehicle (ROV) video of prey encounters, and stable isotope analysis. These approaches are highly complementary and allow for extensive cross validation. Second, the project will characterize the selectivity of siphonophore diets by comparing them to the relative prey abundances in the habitats of each of these species. Third, the project will characterize the structure of the siphonophore prey capture apparatus across species through detailed morphological analysis of their tentacles and nematocysts. These data will be integrated in an ecological and evolutionary framework to identify predator features associated with prey specialization. In a larger context, addressing these questions will advance our understanding of oceanic predation by revealing how evolutionary changes in predator selectivity correspond to evolutionary changes in habitat and feeding apparatus and how these changes shape current food web structure in the open ocean. The team will test and refine an integrated approach to describing the structure and origin of food web topology, and evaluate the potential for phylogenetic relationships to explain prey selectivity.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

食物网描述了谁吃谁，追踪能量从植物到大型动物的流动。虽然陆地上食物网的许多联系是非常熟悉的，但我们对海洋食物网的理解存在很大的差距。缩小这些差距对于了解营养物质和能量如何在海洋生态系统中移动，生物如何在海洋中相互作用以及如何最好地管理海洋资源至关重要。该项目将研究海洋食物网结构，重点是管水母，这是开放海洋中丰富的捕食者群体，形成长度从不到一英寸到超过一百英尺的殖民地。管水母被认为是海洋食物网中重要的捕食者，但它们很难研究，因为它们生活在海洋深处，是凝胶状和脆弱的。它们吃什么的细节，以及它们生物学的许多其他特征，仍然知之甚少。这个项目将结合联合收割机直接观察喂养，管水母肠道内容物的遗传分析和稳定同位素分析，以确定不同种类的管水母吃什么。这将为食物网的结构提供一个新的理解，帮助我们预测随着全球气候变化食物网的未来变化。管水母以一种独特的方式进食--它们有高度专门化的触角，专门用于捕获猎物--因此，捕获的猎物在很大程度上取决于这些触角的解剖结构和功能。该项目将描述这些触角，重建它们的进化历史，并研究触角结构的进化变化如何导致饮食的变化。该项目将培训一名博士生、一名硕士生、一名博士后和本科生，包括代表性不足群体的个人。该项目将支持制作科学严谨但吸引人的视频，促进公民科学计划的扩展，并创建K-12教学模块。该项目将推进三个科学目标：首先，它将使用肠道内容物和猎物场的DNA元条形码识别各种管水母的饮食，捕获猎物的远程操作车辆（Remote Operated Vehicle）视频和稳定同位素分析。这些方法是高度互补的，并允许广泛的交叉验证。第二，该项目将通过将管水母食物与这些物种栖息地中的相对猎物丰度进行比较，来描述管水母食物的选择性。第三，该项目将通过对管水母的触角和捕食囊进行详细的形态分析，来描述不同物种的管水母捕食捕获装置的结构。这些数据将被整合在一个生态和进化的框架，以确定与猎物专业化捕食功能。在更大的范围内，解决这些问题将通过揭示捕食者选择性的进化变化如何对应于栖息地和摄食器官的进化变化以及这些变化如何塑造开阔海洋中当前的食物网结构来促进我们对海洋捕食的理解。 该团队将测试和完善一个综合的方法来描述食物网拓扑结构和起源，并评估系统发育关系的潜力，以解释猎物的选择性。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

项目成果

Integrating siphonophores into marine food‐web ecology

将管水母融入海洋食品网络生态

• DOI: 10.1002/lol2.10235
• 发表时间: 2022
• 期刊: Limnology and Oceanography Letters
• 影响因子: 7.8
• 作者: Hetherington, Elizabeth D.;Damian‐Serrano, Alejandro;Haddock, Steven H.;Dunn, Casey W.;Choy, C. Anela
• 通讯作者: Choy, C. Anela