权益分类	功能权益	普通用户	{{item.name}}会员
{{category.name}}	{{benefitItem.name}}

Collaborative Research: Biodiversity and resilience of corals and their microbiomes in response to ocean deoxygenation

合作研究：珊瑚及其微生物组对海洋脱氧反应的生物多样性和恢复力

基本信息

批准号：
2048914
负责人：
Andrew Altieri
金额：
$ 87.33万
依托单位：
University of Florida
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Continuing Grant
财政年份：
2021
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2021-03-01 至 2025-02-28
项目状态：
未结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2048914&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
Collaborative Research Biodiversity resilience corals

项目摘要

The world’s oceans are facing the threat of deoxygenation—events of low dissolved oxygen insufficient for marine life and healthy ecosystems—which is accelerating along with other global crises including climate change and ocean acidification. The pace of these changes can lead to rapid shifts in the structure of marine communities due to changes in the distribution, abundance, and diversity of species. This collaborative project is among the first to examine the consequences of deoxygenation on coral reefs, which are sentinel ecosystems for studying ecological responses to global change because of their importance to human society, sensitivity to stress, and intricate relationships among their inhabitants. Specifically, the research team investigates why and how some coral species are more tolerant than others and the role that bacteria associated with the corals have in such tolerance. This predictive understanding is important to support conservation and management efforts by identifying stress-tolerant coral species and establishing indicators for assessment of hypoxia stress. The project provides training for multiple undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers. Findings from this project are disseminated through undergraduate and graduate courses taught at the University of Florida, a teacher training program at the Bocas del Toro Research Station at STRI in Panama, a workshop in Panama to build a community of scientists and informed practitioners, and webinars, toolkits, and other resources communicated through established networks of coral conservation and management practitioners. Understanding the responses of coral reefs to ocean deoxygenation is limited to a few post hoc assessments of how unanticipated hypoxic events have impacted macrofauna. This project employs a predictive approach to examine the resilience of coral reef communities to ocean deoxygenation by examining both corals and their associated microbiomes. Complimentary manipulative laboratory and field experiments and surveys along natural gradients of hypoxic stress are being used to answer the following three fundamental questions about how variation in the tolerance of corals and their microbiomes predicts the resilience of reefs to deoxygenation: (1) How does the physiological response of the coral to hypoxia predict community shifts in the microbiome with deoxygenation? (2) To what degree do corals and their microbiomes show evidence of acclimatization to reduced oxygen, and how do these functional shifts confer increased resistance to subsequent hypoxic stress? (3) How are the feedbacks between coral hosts and their microbiomes apparent in the recovery of coral communities from hypoxia and patterns of community structure at the seascape scale? This project aims at developing a mechanistic and predictive understanding of coral reef community responses to ocean deoxygenation by examining stability and resilience at two levels of ecological organization: the assemblage of coral species at the reef scale, and the assemblage of microbes at the holobiont scale. Moreover, this study examines how those responses are coupled by feedbacks at the colony scale through coral physiological responses and microbial functional shifts.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.

世界海洋正面临脱氧的威胁，即溶解氧过低，不足以维持海洋生物和健康生态系统的生存，这种威胁随着气候变化和海洋酸化等其他全球危机而加剧。由于物种分布、丰度和多样性的变化，这些变化的速度可能导致海洋群落结构的快速变化。该合作项目是第一个研究珊瑚礁脱氧后果的项目之一，珊瑚礁是研究对全球变化的生态反应的前哨生态系统，因为它们对人类社会的重要性、对压力的敏感性以及居民之间错综复杂的关系。具体来说，研究小组调查了一些珊瑚物种为何以及如何比其他珊瑚物种更具耐受性，以及与珊瑚相关的细菌在这种耐受性中的作用。这种预测性的理解对于通过识别耐压珊瑚物种和建立缺氧压力评估指标来支持保护和管理工作非常重要。该项目为多名本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员提供培训。该项目的研究结果通过佛罗里达大学教授的本科生和研究生课程、巴拿马 STRI 博卡斯德尔托罗研究站的教师培训计划、在巴拿马举办的旨在建立科学家和知情从业者社区的研讨会、以及通过已建立的珊瑚保护和管理从业者网络传播的网络研讨会、工具包和其他资源进行传播。了解珊瑚礁对海洋脱氧的反应仅限于对意外缺氧事件如何影响大型动物群进行一些事后评估。该项目采用预测方法，通过检查珊瑚及其相关微生物组来检查珊瑚礁群落对海洋脱氧的恢复能力。沿着缺氧应激自然梯度进行的免费操作性实验室和现场实验以及调查被用来回答以下三个基本问题，即珊瑚及其微生物组耐受性的变化如何预测珊瑚礁对脱氧的恢复力：（1）珊瑚对缺氧的生理反应如何预测脱氧时微生物组群落的变化？ (2) 珊瑚及其微生物组在多大程度上显示出适应低氧环境的证据，以及这些功能转变如何增强对随后的缺氧应激的抵抗力？（3）珊瑚宿主及其微生物组之间的反馈在珊瑚群落从缺氧状态中恢复以及海景尺度的群落结构模式中如何明显？该项目旨在通过检查生态组织两个层面的稳定性和恢复力：珊瑚礁尺度上的珊瑚物种组合和全生物尺度上的微生物组合，对珊瑚礁群落对海洋脱氧的反应建立机械和预测性的理解。此外，这项研究还探讨了这些反应如何通过珊瑚生理反应和微生物功能变化与群体规模的反馈相结合。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。