PurSUiT: Diversity and endemism across a steep biogeographic cline: marine invertebrates of Oman

在世界上的珊瑚礁中，很少有像阿曼附近的印度-西太平洋海洋地区的珊瑚礁那样多样化、鲜为人知、环境多变、受到全球气候变化的威胁。该地区的珊瑚礁群落在极端的温度、盐度、pH值和氧气条件下生存或茁壮成长，从而提供了对未来全球海洋条件的生物适应的一瞥。这项研究将记录阿曼附近珊瑚礁的海洋无脊椎动物的多样性，作为大规模调查的一部分，利用一套综合的收集、成像、遗传和信息学工具。研究人员将把重点放在发现、描述和分析研究不足的无脊椎动物门上，其中将包括很大比例的科学新物种或阿拉伯半岛周围水域特有的物种。研究生和本科生将接受系统分类学和选定群体的生物地理学方面的培训，并将发展一系列技能，包括野外和基因组技术。研究人员将创建一个培训研讨会、一门研究生课程和一门大规模的开放式在线课程，向下一代传授在采样不足的海洋环境中进行生物多样性调查的方法。外展和教育活动将利用佛罗里达自然历史博物馆、史密森尼博物馆和加州科学院的机构能力，让不同的公众了解受威胁的珊瑚礁环境的价值。研究人员将使用有针对性的广谱方法调查阿拉伯海、阿曼湾和阿拉伯/波斯湾沿海珊瑚礁栖息地的海洋无脊椎动物门。研究人员将进一步通过浮游生物、底栖生物组合的群落DNA测序来记录多样性，并在自主珊瑚礁监测结构上招募生物群。大约20,000批标本将被保存在博物馆收藏中进行研究，成像和测序，并分发给合作的分类学家网络进行分析。因此，估计有3000个物种将被完全描述。研究人员将在必要时描述新物种，并将评估宗教主义、盆地隔离、生态物种形成和远距离殖民作为多样性、地方性和进化新颖性的来源的相对作用。这些数据将在公共存储库中共享，将提供有关海洋生物多样性的基线信息，用于监测目的，并与印度-西太平洋海洋区域的其他地区进行比较。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Among coral reefs of the world, few are as diverse, poorly known, environmentally variable, and threatened by global climate change as those of the Indo-West Pacific marine region near Oman. Reef communities in this region survive or thrive across extremes of temperatures, salinities, pH, and oxygen, and thus offer a glimpse of biological adaptations to future global ocean conditions. This study will document the diversity of marine invertebrate animals in reefs near Oman as part of a large-scale survey utilizing an integrated set of collecting, imaging, genetic, and informatics tools. Researchers will focus on the discovery, description and analysis of understudied invertebrate phyla, which will include a high proportion of species new to science or endemic to waters around the Arabian Peninsula. Graduate and undergraduate students will be trained in the systematics and biogeography of selected groups and will develop a range of skills including field and genomic techniques. Researchers will create a training workshop, a graduate course, and a massive open online course to educate the next generation about biodiversity survey methods of poorly sampled marine environments. Outreach and educational initiatives will leverage institutional capacities at the Florida Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian, and California Academy of Sciences to engage diverse public audiences in understanding the value of threatened coral reef environments. Researchers will survey marine invertebrate phyla within coastal reef habitats of the Arabian Sea, Gulf of Oman, and the Arabian/Persian Gulf using targeted and broad-spectrum methods. Researchers will further document diversity through community DNA sequencing of plankton, benthic assemblages, and recruited biota on autonomous reef monitoring structures. Approximately 20,000 lots of specimens will be preserved for study in museum collections, imaged, and sequenced, and distributed to a network of collaborating taxonomists for analysis. An estimated 3000 species will be fully characterized as a consequence. Researchers will describe new species where warranted and will assess the relative roles of relictualism, basinal isolation, ecological speciation, and long-distance colonization as sources of diversity, endemism, and evolutionary novelty in the Arabian Peninsula reef communities. These data, which will be shared in public repositories, will provide baseline information regarding marine biodiversity for monitoring purposes and for comparison to other areas of the Indo-West Pacific marine region.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.