OCE-PRF: Variability in connectivity and receptivity of highly dynamic coastal ecosystems: implications for community structure and function in a recipient soft-sediment ecosystem

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。沿海生态系统面临着来自陆地和海洋的压力，包括发展和海平面上升。重要的是要更好地了解沿海生态系统的功能，以便预测它们在未来条件下可能发生的变化，并更好地管理这些环境。该项目将使用长期数据、观测研究和实验来更多地了解海带森林和沙滩之间的关系。具体来说，该项目将探索海浪、潮汐和海平面如何控制被冲上岸的海带残骸的数量，海带森林的状况如何影响沙滩的生态，以及海滩残骸如何为生活在海滩上或在海滩上寻找食物的动物提供栖息地和食物。该项目将使用无人机开发新的研究方法，并启动新的长期监测数据集，这将有助于保护这些重要的沿海生态系统。此外，该项目将支持下一代海洋科学家，并通过在本科和高中阶段为代表性不足的少数民族提供研究机会和指导，增加该领域的多样性。该项目还将通过地球日的参与、在公立高中的客座演讲和大学的公共生物学日，提高社区对沿海生态系统和保护问题的认识。跨生态系统连通性是许多生态系统的一个关键特征，对食物网、生物多样性和生态系统功能具有重要意义。沙滩生态系统因其在海物输入类型和数量上具有很强的自然梯度，以及多种营养水平对海物食物和栖息地的依赖，为研究生态系统补贴的作用提供了独特的研究体系。该研究将采用观察、实验和理论相结合的方法，探索包括生态系统连通性、食物网补贴和自然变化在内的环境属性如何跨尺度地影响多层次的生物组织和生态系统功能。本研究将利用近岸礁石和沙滩来了解不同环境条件下补贴的命运，确定供给方生态系统的可变性和稳定性如何影响受援方生态系统的结构和功能，并探讨补贴类型和供应率的可变性如何影响其定植和再矿化。该项目还将启动并促进长期监测数据集，并利用基于无人飞行器的方法和分析来量化生态系统补贴动态和时空尺度上的命运。利用海带森林持久性的自然梯度和不同补贴投入的操纵性田间试验，探讨补贴变化如何影响多个沙滩营养类群的生物多样性。将利用实地实验来更好地限制补贴在一段时间内以及在一系列海洋和海滩条件下的动态和命运。这项研究将扩大对海带森林和海滩之间耦合以及海带碎屑出口命运的理解。野外调查和实验结果也将进一步阐明生态系统连通性在促进和维持生物多样性、次生生产力和碎屑食物网等关键生态系统功能中的重要性。面对与全球气候变化和其他直接人为压力相关的连通性降低、变异性增加、食物资源和栖息地丧失，这项研究将对沿海生态系统的管理和保护产生影响。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).Coastal ecosystems face pressures from both the land and the sea, including development and sea level rise. It is important to better understand how coastal ecosystems function so that predictions can be made about how they may change under future conditions and to better manage these environments now and in the future. This project will use long-term data, observational studies, and experiments to learn more about the relationship between kelp forests and sandy beaches. Specifically, this project will explore how waves, tides, and sea level control the amount of kelp wrack that washes ashore, how the condition of kelp forests impacts the ecology of sandy beaches, and how beach wrack provides habitat and food for animals that live or find food on beaches. This project will develop new research methods using drones and start new, long-term monitoring datasets that will contribute to the conservation of these important coastal ecosystems. Additionally, this project will support the next generation of marine scientists and increase diversity in the field by providing research opportunities and mentoring to under-represented minorities at the undergraduate and high school levels. This project will also increase community awareness of coastal ecosystems and conservation issues through Earth Day participation, guest lecturing at public high schools, and public biology days at the university. Cross-ecosystem connectivity is a critical feature of many ecosystems and has important implications for food webs, biodiversity, and ecosystem functioning. Sandy beach ecosystems provide a unique study system for the role of ecosystem subsidies because of strong natural gradients in the type and amount of marine wrack inputs and the dependence of multiple trophic levels on wrack for food and habitat. The proposed research will use a combination of observations, experiments, and theory to explore how environmental attributes, including ecosystem connectivity, food web subsidies, and natural variation work across scales to affect multiple levels of biological organization and ecosystem functioning. This study will utilize nearshore rocky reefs and sandy beaches to understand the fate of subsidies under varying environmental conditions, determine how variability and stability in a donor ecosystem affects the structure and function of the recipient ecosystem, and to explore how variability in the type and supply rate of subsidies affects its colonization and remineralization. This project will also initiate and contribute to long-term monitoring datasets and utilize unoccupied aerial vehicle-based methodology and analyses to quantify ecosystem subsidy dynamics and fate across spatial and temporal scales. Using a natural gradient in kelp forest persistence and a manipulative field experiment varying subsidy inputs, it will explore how subsidy variability impacts the biodiversity of multiple sandy beach trophic groups. Field experiments will be utilized to better constrain the dynamics and fate of subsidies over time and across a range of oceanographic and beach conditions. This research will expand understanding of the coupling between kelp forests and beaches and the fate of detrital kelp export. Results from field surveys and experiments will also further elucidate the importance of ecosystem connectivity for critical ecosystem functions from promoting and maintaining biodiversity to secondary productivity and other aspects of this detrital food web. This study will have implications for management and conservation of coastal ecosystems in the face of reduced connectivity, increased variability, and loss of food resources and habitat associated with global climate change and other direct anthropogenic pressures.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.