OCE-PRF Ecological consequences of seawater chemistry modification by ecosystem engineers

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。这个项目将决定生态系统工程师如何通过改变当地化学来塑造社区。生态系统工程师通常通过个体的密集聚集（如贻贝床，海带树冠等）来改变栖息地的物理特性，与未经修改的栖息地相比，可以容纳广泛的生物多样性。这样的栖息地可以通过各种机制控制居民社区，包括改变当地的化学物质。通过实验室和实地实验，该项目将比较不同栖息地形成物种组合中改变的化学环境如何塑造长期和短期社区对化学压力的恢复能力。这项研究的结果将直接为水产养殖、保护和恢复提供信息，揭示现有机制，使社区为未来更有压力的海洋做好准备。该项目还将通过与现有的STEM招聘计划合作，并分配资金来补偿参与者，从而扩大通常在生态学中代表性不足的群体对科学的参与。通过与当地贝类养殖和社区教育项目的合作，该项目还将作为教育和推广材料的基础，用于加强人们与环境的联系，同时在学术界-工业界-社区合作中对他们进行环境管理和科学研究相关主题的教育。生物栖息地内海水化学的小尺度变化可以由生物过程主导，如呼吸、光合作用、钙化、溶解及其组合（例如大藻冠层vs珊瑚藻冠层vs贻贝床）。这些过程中的每一个对海水碳酸盐系统都有不同的影响，例如，它们可以降低或增加二氧化碳浓度（分别是光合作用和呼吸作用），也可以降低或增加碱度（分别是钙化作用和溶解作用）。此外，这些过程是在更大规模的过程（如海洋酸化或河流排放）对碳酸盐化学进一步扰动的背景下发生的。该项目将考察不同的栖息地形成生态系统工程师改善他们所创造的栖息地内各种化学压力的能力，以及这种改善发生的时间尺度。通过确定在急性化学胁迫条件下移动类群和定居类群的生境偏好是否不同，评估短期改良潜力。通过测量不同类型生物栖息地中居民的生长速率，该项目将揭示居住生物一生中的改善潜力。最后，这些栖息地驱动居民适应化学压力的能力将通过跟踪来自不同类型栖息地的当地适应的蛤蜊菌株在面对化学压力事件时的表现来确定。总体而言，该项目旨在揭示基金会物种的各种化学改性在不同时间尺度上促进或抑制相关无脊椎动物群落成员的化学背景。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行了评估，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).This project will determine how ecosystem engineers shape communities by altering local chemistry. Ecosystem engineers modify the physical properties of a habitat often via the dense aggregation of individuals (e.g. mussel beds, kelp canopies, etc.)and can harbor extensive biodiversity compared to unmodified habitats. Such habitats can control resident communities through a variety of mechanisms including altering local chemistry. Through laboratory and field experiments, this project will compare how the altered chemical environments within diverse assemblages of habitat-forming species can shape long-and short-term community resilience to chemical stress. Results of this study will directly inform aquaculture, conservation, and restoration by revealing mechanisms available to prepare communities for more stressful oceans in the future. This project will additionally broaden participation in science by groups typically underrepresented in ecology by partnering with existing STEM recruitment programs and allocating funds to compensate participants. In collaboration with local shellfish aquaculture and community education programs, this project will also serve as the basis for education and outreach materials that are used to increase peoples’ connection to the environment while educating them on topics related to environmental stewardship and scientific research in an academia-industry-community collaboration.Small scale alterations of seawater chemistry within biogenic habitats can be dominated by biological processes like respiration, photosynthesis, calcification, dissolution, and their combinations (e.g. macroalgal canopies vs coralline algal canopies vs mussel beds). Each of these processes has different consequences for the seawater carbonate system in that they can, for example, either decrease or increase carbon dioxide concentrations (photosynthesis and respiration, respectively) or either decrease or increase alkalinity (calcification and dissolution, respectively). These processes additionally occur against a backdrop of further perturbations to carbonate chemistry by larger scale processes like ocean acidification or riverine discharge. This project will examine the ability of different habitat-forming ecosystem engineers to ameliorate diverse chemical stresses within the habitat they create and the time scales over which that amelioration occurs.Short-term amelioration potential will be assessed by determining whether habitat preference of mobile or settling taxa differs under acute chemical stress conditions. By measuring growth rates of residents within diverse types of biogenic habitat this project will reveal amelioration potential during a resident organism’s lifetime. Lastly, the ability of these habitats to drive resident adaption to chemical stress will be determined by tracking how strains of a locally adapted clam originating from different types of habitats perform in the face of chemical stress events. Overall, this project, aims to reveal the chemical contexts under which various types of chemical modification by foundation species can either facilitate or inhibit the members of associated invertebrate communities across several time scalesThis 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.