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

世界海洋正面临着缺氧的威胁低溶解氧的事件不足以维持海洋生物和健康的生态系统这一威胁正与其他全球危机一起加速沿着，包括气候变化和海洋酸化。由于物种的分布、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迅速变化。这个合作项目是第一个研究脱氧对珊瑚礁的后果的项目之一，珊瑚礁是研究对全球变化的生态反应的哨兵生态系统，因为它们对人类社会的重要性，对压力的敏感性，以及它们的居民之间的复杂关系。具体来说，研究小组调查了为什么以及如何一些珊瑚物种比其他物种更耐受，以及与珊瑚相关的细菌在这种耐受性中的作用。这种预测性的理解是重要的，以支持保护和管理工作，确定耐压力的珊瑚物种和建立指标，缺氧压力的评估。该项目为多名本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员提供培训。该项目的调查结果通过以下方式传播：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、巴拿马建立科学家和知情从业人员社区的研讨会、网络研讨会、工具包以及通过珊瑚养护和管理从业人员的既定网络传播的其他资源。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的一些事后评估。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。沿着缺氧压力的自然梯度进行的免费操作实验室和实地实验和调查沿着被用来回答以下三个基本问题，即珊瑚及其微生物组的耐受性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微生物组中的群落变化？(2)珊瑚和它们的微生物组在多大程度上显示出对缺氧的适应性，这些功能转变如何增强对随后缺氧应激的抵抗力？(3)珊瑚宿主和它们的微生物之间的反馈如何在珊瑚群落从缺氧中恢复以及海景尺度上的群落结构模式中表现出来？该项目旨在通过研究两个层次的生态组织的稳定性和复原力，对珊瑚礁群落对海洋脱氧的反应形成一种机械的和预测性的理解：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。此外，这项研究探讨了这些反应是如何通过反馈耦合在殖民地规模通过珊瑚生理反应和微生物功能shifts.This奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估的支持。

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.