Facility improvements to establish capacity for coral reef resilience research assessing genetic adaptation and physiological acclimatization

改进设施以建立评估遗传适应和生理适应能力的珊瑚礁复原力研究能力

• 批准号: 2147677
• 负责人: Gretchen Goodbody-Gringley
• 金额: $ 44.56万
• 依托单位: Central Caribbean Marine Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-07-01 至 2025-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2147677&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Facility; improvements; establish; capacity; coral

Corals form the architectural framework for tropical reefs, supporting the most productive and biologically diverse marine ecosystems on Earth. Because coral reefs are especially vulnerable, it is important to understand how organisms and populations can respond to ocean warming either through range expansion, physiological acclimatization, or genetic adaptation. At the Central Caribbean Marine Institute in the Cayman Islands, data collected continuously over the last 22 years offers a long-term ecological record of thereefs and provides insight into the recent performance of the local reef ecosystem and impacts of global stress events, such as coral bleaching. This long-term dataset can provide unique insight and evidence of resilience capacity of coral reefs in the region and potentially globally. This award will leverage this research history with infrastructure to study the physiological and molecular mechanisms that drive resilience of coral reef systems. It will provide a much-needed opportunity for scientists to disentangle anthropogenic and climate influences on coral reef evolution, adaption, and resilience at all levels of the ecosystem, from species and community levels to genomic and microbial levels. The new infrastructure consists of an outdoor mesocosm in which environmental parameters can be modified independently for manipulative experiments, and an adjacent molecular laboratory that will enable preservation, extraction and processing of experimental samples. Current research on the mechanisms driving coral reef ecosystem and organismal adaptation and evolution during climate stress and extreme will be advanced by the capacity to experimentally manipulate environmental conditions, such as light and temperature, as well as access to a molecular facility to process and preserve samples for genomic comparisons. Resources that enable manipulative experiments and molecular analyses, will attract visiting researchers to examine questions related to reef resilience and adaptation in collaboration with resident scientists at CCMI. Public outreach and educational programs serving undergraduate and graduate level students will be expanded by the new infrastructure. For more information about CMMI, please visit https://reefresearch.org/.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.

珊瑚构成了热带珊瑚礁的建筑框架，支持着地球上最具生产力和生物多样性的海洋生态系统。由于珊瑚礁特别脆弱，重要的是要了解生物和种群如何通过范围扩大、生理适应或遗传适应来应对海洋变暖。在开曼群岛的中加勒比海洋研究所，过去22年连续收集的数据提供了珊瑚礁的长期生态记录，并提供了对当地珊瑚礁生态系统近期表现和珊瑚漂白等全球压力事件的影响的洞察。这一长期数据集可以为本区域乃至全球珊瑚礁的复原能力提供独特的洞察和证据。该奖项将利用这一研究历史和基础设施来研究驱动珊瑚礁系统弹性的生理和分子机制。这将为科学家提供一个亟需的机会，从物种和群落水平到基因组和微生物水平，理清人为和气候对珊瑚礁进化、适应和恢复能力的影响。新的基础设施包括一个室外中空室，其中的环境参数可以独立地进行操纵实验，以及邻近的一个分子实验室，它将能够保存、提取和处理实验样品。目前关于推动珊瑚礁生态系统以及生物在气候压力和极端情况下适应和进化的机制的研究将得到推进，因为能够通过实验操纵环境条件，如光和温度，以及获得处理和保存样本以进行基因组比较的分子设施。能够进行操纵性实验和分子分析的资源，将吸引来访的研究人员与CCMI常驻科学家合作，审查与珊瑚礁弹性和适应有关的问题。新的基础设施将扩大为本科生和研究生服务的公共宣传和教育项目。欲了解更多有关CMMI的信息，请访问https://reefresearch.org/.This奖项，该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并已通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。