CAREER: THE IMPACTS OF ANTHROPOGENICALLY-DERIVED SUBSIDIES ON FRESHWATER ECOSYSTEMS

河流和溪流提供重要的服务，如饮用水、渔业和娱乐机会。然而，全球河流和溪流的完整性受到老化和陈旧的废水基础设施造成的污染的影响。目前，人们对人类排泄物如何影响河流群落和生态系统进程的了解有限。该项目将整合实地观察、实验和建模，以促进我们对河流和溪流如何受到废水基础设施影响的理解，并将为土木工程、环境工程和生态系统科学之间的相互作用提供新的见解。这一职业奖项将支持高中生、研究生和博士后研究员的培养和发展。了解影响河流结构和功能的因素的时空变化，对于预测淡水将如何应对持续的人为变化至关重要。这项职业奖将把现场观察与基于现场和实验室的实验和建模结合起来，以检查：1)进入河流系统的废水的质量、数量和相对量的时空变化，2)废水对流动水域的新陈代谢过程的季节和年度模式的影响，3)废水与环境营养浓度之间的相互作用对营养关系以及对消费者的组织和矿化化学计量的影响，以及4)消费者将废水衍生的能量和元素输送到河网内资源有限的系统的程度。该奖项将把废水排放纳入空间补贴框架，以支持对废水如何构成水生群落和改变河流网络中的生物地球化学过程的更准确预测。此外，该奖项将产生比较热带大型河流河流新陈代谢过程的季节和年度模式所需的数据。这项研究还将测试消费者的营养和化学计量特征的灵活性如何控制他们在不同环境条件下的生物地球化学循环中所起的作用。将开发环境科学入门课程和高级生态学课程的教育模块和服务学习项目。高中生将接受溪流生态学方面的培训，并在当地政府和淡水保护组织提供实习机会。此外，这项研究将具有重要的管理意义，因为全球各国政府都面临着解决废水对水质、人类健康和生物多样性的影响的挑战。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Rivers and streams provide important services, such as drinking water, fisheries, and recreational opportunities. Yet, the integrity of rivers and streams throughout the globe is compromised by pollution from aging and obsolete wastewater infrastructure. Currently, there is limited understanding of how human waste affects stream communities and ecosystem processes. The project will integrate field observations, experiments, and modelling, to advance our understanding of how rivers and streams are affected by wastewater infrastructure, and will provide new insights into interactions between civil and environmental engineering and ecosystem science. This CAREER award will support the training and development of high school students, graduate students, and a postdoctoral researcher. Understanding the spatial and temporal variation in the factors influencing riverine structure and function is essential to predict how fresh waters will respond to continued anthropogenic change. This CAREER award will couple field observations with field- and lab-based experiments and modelling, to examine: 1) spatial and temporal variation in the quality, quantity, and relative volume of wastewater entering river systems, 2) the effects of wastewater on seasonal and annual patterns of metabolic processes flowing waters, 3) the influence of interactions between wastewater and ambient nutrient concentrations on trophic relationships and on the tissue and mineralization stoichiometry of consumers, and 4) the extent to which consumers transport wastewater-derived energy and elements to resource-limited systems within river networks. The award will integrate wastewater discharge into a spatial subsides framework to support more accurate predictions for how wastewater structures aquatic communities and alters biogeochemical processes in river networks. Moreover, the award will generate the data needed to compare seasonal and annual patterns in riverine metabolic processes in large, tropical rivers. The research will also test how flexibility in the trophic and stoichiometric traits of consumers governs the role they play in biogeochemical cycling under variable environmental conditions. Educational modules and service-learning projects in introductory environmental science and advanced ecology courses will be developed. High school students will be trained in stream ecology and provided internships with the local government and freshwater conservation organizations. Additionally, this research will have important management implications, as governments throughout the globe are challenged to fix wastewater effects on water quality, human health, and biodiversity.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.