BII-Implementation: The causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world

该生物综合研究所将利用遥感和光谱生物学工具，开发测量植物个体和景观植被的新技术，以便了解生物多样性变化的原因和后果。生物多样性丧失和气候变化是威胁人类生命支持系统及其科普重大挑战能力的重大全球危机。对我们来说，汇集我们对从细胞到大陆的生命多样性的知识，以更好地了解其变化对影响我们福祉的生物过程的原因和后果，这一点从未像现在这样重要。随着生物科学变得越来越分散，需要新的方法来整合跨尺度的生物过程，以了解地球生命支持系统的基础。光谱生物学利用能量与物质相互作用的方式来揭示关于植物的化学，结构，功能和进化的大量信息。该项目利用现有的技术和平台，如国家生态观测网络（氖）--以及那些随着即将到来的卫星而在全球范围内出现的技术和平台--使用相同的货币来量化每一个生物尺度上的生命组成部分：来自太阳的光子被植物反射。在这样做的同时，研究所将培训下一代多样化和综合性的生物学家，包括指导来自边缘化群体的年轻科学家。它将侧重于通过市场科学模块，Minute Earth视频，博物馆展览和公众参与以及通过贝尔自然历史博物馆，雪松溪生态系统科学保护区（CCESR），和威斯康星州部落保护协会。该研究所将调查的原因和后果的植物多样性跨越规模在一个迅速从细胞和组织内的基因和分子到社区、生态系统、景观和生物圈，该研究所的重点是植物生物多样性，广义上定义为包括从最小到最大生物尺度发生的生命异质性。该研究所的一个前提是，生命被设想为在不同的尺度上发生，嵌套在生物层次结构的几个对比概念中，由生理学，进化生物学和生态学的独立但相关的领域定义。该研究所将强调使用光谱生物学和面向过程的预测模型，通过解决以下五个主题来研究一个尺度的生物成分如何在更高尺度上产生新的特性： 主题1.遗传和环境（即，GxE）通过转录组学、代谢和形态学变异联系的叶和全植物尺度上的性状变异的驱动因素; 主题2.进化如何在生命树中产生功能和光谱变化及其在生物多样性检测中的效用; 主题3.在当前和未来的环境条件下，在生命树上取样的功能和光谱上不同的分类群如何在当地相互作用，从而导致多个空间尺度上的群落组合和动态; 主题4.生物多样性对生态系统功能的影响及其对全球变化的反应; 主题5.如何在不同的空间尺度上改进组织到生态系统尺度特性的参数化，并改进包含植物功能多样性的陆面模型。该研究所将通过利用光谱生物学，实验，观察和合成建模的潜力，以前所未有的方式整合生物学，以改变对生物尺度内和生物尺度之间的变化如何驱动植物和生态系统对昼夜，季节和千年时间尺度的全球变化的反应的理解。该奖项反映了NSF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。

This Biology Integration Institute will use the tools of remote sensing and spectral biology to develop new techniques for measuring individual plants and landscape vegetation so as to understand the causes and consequences of biodiversity change. Biodiversity loss and climate change are major global crises that threaten humanity’s life support systems and its ability to cope with major challenges. It has never been more important for us to bring together our knowledge of life’s diversity from cells to continents to better understand the causes and consequences of its change for the biological processes that impact our well-being. As the biological sciences have become increasingly fragmented, new ways to integrate biological processes across scales are needed to understand the basis of Earth's life support systems. Spectral biology takes advantage of the way that energy interacts with matter to reveal immense amounts of information about the chemistry, structure, function, and evolution of plants. The project harnesses the technology and platforms now available, such as the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON)—and those emerging even at the global scale with forthcoming satellites—to quantify building blocks of life at every biological scale using the same currency: photons from the sun that are reflected by plants. While doing so, the Institute will train the next generation of diverse and integrative biologists, including the mentoring of young scientists from marginalized groups. It will focus on engaging Native American communities, K-12 teacher training, and public outreach through Market Science modules, Minute Earth videos, a museum exhibit and public engagement and educational activities through the Bell Museum of Natural History, the Cedar Creek Ecosystem Science Reserve (CCESR), and the Wisconsin Tribal Conservation Association.The Institute will investigate the causes and consequences of plant biodiversity across scales in a rapidly changing world, from genes and molecules within cells and tissues to communities, ecosystems, landscapes and the biosphere. The Institute focuses on plant biodiversity, defined broadly to encompass the heterogeneity within life that occurs from the smallest to the largest biological scales. A premise of the Institute is that life is envisioned as occurring at different scales nested within several contrasting conceptions of biological hierarchies, defined by the separate but related fields of physiology, evolutionary biology, and ecology. The Institute will emphasize the use of spectral biology and process-oriented predictive models to investigate the ways that biological components at one scale give rise to emergent properties at higher scales by addressing five themes: Theme 1. The genetic and environmental (i.e., GxE) drivers of trait variation at the leaf and whole plant scale linked by transcriptomic, metabolic and morphological variation; Theme 2. How evolution generates the functional and spectral variation across the tree of life and its utility for biodiversity detection; Theme 3. How functionally and spectrally distinct taxa, sampled across the tree of life, interact locally, leading to the assembly and dynamics of communities at multiple spatial scales, under current and future environmental conditions; Theme 4. The consequences of biodiversity for ecosystem functioning and its response to global change; Theme 5. How to improve parameterization of tissue- to ecosystem-scale properties at various spatial scales and advance land surface models that incorporate plant functional diversity. The Institute will integrate biology in new ways by harnessing the potential of spectral biology, experiments, observations, and synthetic modeling in a manner never before possible to transform understanding of how variation within and among biological scales drives plant and ecosystem responses to global change over diurnal, seasonal, and millennial time scales. In doing so, the institute will use and advance state-of-the-art theory.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.