OCE-PRF: The landscape of hybridization and adaptation across reef depth in a coral community

该奖项全部或部分由《2021年美国救援计划法案》（公法117-2）资助。珊瑚支撑着世界上一些最多样化的栖息地，为人们提供收入、食物和保护。然而，珊瑚受到气候变化、过度捕捞和污染的威胁。有些珊瑚比其他珊瑚更能适应恶劣的环境。珊瑚也生活在不同的深度，经历温度、光线和水流的变化。了解珊瑚如何适应当地的栖息地将有助于我们了解珊瑚如何在未来生存。杂交，即基因在种群或物种之间交换，是一些生物适应环境变化的重要途径。这个过程可能对珊瑚成功适应不断变化的环境也很重要。这项研究试图回答这样一个问题：杂交是否有助于珊瑚适应不同珊瑚礁深度的当地环境条件？这项研究将有助于确定珊瑚在不断变化的世界中适应的重要过程，有助于保护脆弱的珊瑚礁系统。该研究员将参加加州科学院博物馆的外展活动，指导高中实习生，并开发课程，以帮助与广泛的受众分享这项研究。通过对实习生、科学家和教育工作者进行气候变化沟通方面的培训，她将扩大有关气候变化对生态和社会影响的重要公共信息。确定潜在的适应机制是了解物种适应快速变化的世界的能力的关键的第一步。杂交和渐渗（杂交后再回交）可能对快速进化适应不断变化的环境条件特别重要，但对它们在适应新环境方面的作用的研究才刚刚开始。杂交，特别是在物种重叠的范围边界，可能是增加常住遗传变异或将预适应等位基因引入种群的一种快速手段，可能对表型、物种形成和群落组成产生影响。该项目的目标是开发一个框架，用于预测环境和生态因素的杂交发生，同时确定适应性位点并测试珊瑚群落中复制环境梯度的杂交性能。本研究将使用一套从分子到群落水平的观察、实验、统计和计算方法，测试1)杂交，2)适应性渗入，以及3)加勒比海珊瑚属（Madracis spp.）的基因组-表型联系。这项工作将增加我们对杂交和适应如何在珊瑚礁深度相互作用以影响珊瑚健康的理解。该项目还提供了参与外展、发展科学和气候变化传播者网络以及培训下一代STEM领导者的机会。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，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 award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).Corals support some of the most diverse habitats in the world and provide people with income, food, and protection. However, corals are threatened by climate change, overfishing, and pollution. Some corals are better than others at tolerating harsher conditions. Corals also live at different depths that experience variation in temperature, light, and water flow. Understanding how corals adapt to their local habitats will help us understand how corals might survive into the future. Hybridization, where genes are exchanged among populations or species, is an important way for some organisms to adapt to changes in the environment. This process may be important for corals to successfully adapt to changing environments, as well. This research seeks to answer the question: Does hybridization help corals adapt to local environmental conditions at different reef depths? This research will help to identify the processes that are important for coral adaptation in a changing world, aiding in the conservation of vulnerable coral reef systems. The Fellow will participate in outreach events on the California Academy of Sciences museum floor, mentor high school interns, and develop curricula to help share this research with a broad audience. By training interns, scientists, and educators in climate change communication, she will amplify essential public messages about the ecological and societal impacts of climate change. The identification of underlying adaptive mechanisms is a crucial first step towards understanding the capacity of species to adapt in a rapidly changing world. Hybridization and introgression (hybridization followed by back-crossing) may be particularly important for rapid evolution to changing environmental conditions, but investigations into their roles in adaptation to new environments has only begun. Hybridization, especially at range boundaries where species overlap, may be a rapid means of increasing standing genetic variation or introducing pre-adapted alleles into a population, with likely consequences for phenotypes, speciation, and community composition. The goal of this project is to develop a framework for predicting hybrid occurrence from environmental and ecological factors while simultaneously identifying adaptive loci and testing hybrid performance across replicated environmental gradients in a coral community. Using a suite of observational, experimental, statistical, and computational methods spanning molecular to community-levels, this research will test for 1) hybridization, 2) adaptive introgression, and 3) genome-phenome linkages in a genus of corals (Madracis spp.) in the Caribbean. This work will increase our understanding of how hybridization and adaptation interact across reef depths to influence coral health. This project also offers opportunities to engage in outreach, grow networks of science and climate change communicators, and train the next generation of STEM leaders.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.