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-西太平洋海洋区域那样多样，鲜为人知，环境多变，并受到全球气候变化的威胁。这一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繁荣，从而提供了生物适应未来全球海洋条件的一瞥。这项研究将记录阿曼附近珊瑚礁中海洋无脊椎动物的多样性，作为利用一套综合收集，成像，遗传和信息学工具进行大规模调查的一部分。研究人员将专注于发现、描述和分析未充分研究的无脊椎动物门，其中将包括高比例的科学新物种或阿拉伯半岛周围沃茨特有的物种。研究生和本科生将接受选定群体的系统学和地理学培训，并将发展一系列技能，包括实地和基因组技术。研究人员将创建一个培训研讨会，一个研究生课程和一个大规模的开放式在线课程，以教育下一代关于采样不足的海洋环境的生物多样性调查方法。外联和教育举措将利用佛罗里达自然历史博物馆、史密森尼学会和加州科学院的机构能力，让不同的公众了解受威胁珊瑚礁环境的价值。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内的海洋无脊椎动物门。研究人员将通过浮游生物、底栖生物组合和自主珊瑚礁监测结构上的补充生物群的群落DNA测序，进一步记录多样性。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。估计有3000个物种将因此得到充分鉴定。研究人员将描述新的物种，在保证和将评估的相对作用的遗迹，盆地隔离，生态物种形成，和长距离殖民的多样性，特有性和进化的新奇在阿拉伯半岛珊瑚礁社区的来源。这些数据将在公共储存库中共享，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区域进行比较，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得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来支持。

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.