NSFGEO-NERC: Linking species traits to marine ecosystem functioning

人类正在改变地球上生命的多样性，改变生态系统中物种的数量和组成。了解这些变化将如何影响自然系统的功能是至关重要的。该项目评估了一种有前景的预测生物多样性变化影响的方法，方法是将物种的物理特征--它们的形状和形式--与它们在社区和生态系统中发挥的关键作用联系起来。这些特征和新角色之间的联系没有得到很好的描述，特别是在沿海海洋环境中。该项目涉及在美国西海岸和欧洲海岸(通过与英国自然环境研究理事会的合作)岩石海岸线上的环境条件-潮汐高度、暴露在巨浪中和纬度-沿梯度筛选海藻物种的特征。该项目包括在与公众有大量接触的地区进行实验和推广，调查人员将与社区、大学和博物馆推广人员合作，向更广泛的受众传达这项研究。该项目包括课程开发和推广机制，并培训海洋科学方面的本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员。该项目还支持一个视觉艺术展览，供公众展示，展示海藻物种的丧失。研究人员正在使用一套创新的方法来了解海藻的功能特征和新出现的功能属性之间的联系，提供了一个史无前例的连接海藻形态、生理和生态的数据集：(I)表征海藻群落的功能结构，以及这种结构如何在环境梯度上发生变化，(Ii)评估这套易于测量的特征与生理和生态过程的关系，(Iii)测量美国和欧洲海岸线上跨越纬度、波浪暴露和潮汐海拔梯度的多个地点的物种和特征。以及(Iv)评估沿这些梯度的功能冗余的变化，以量化群落相互作用和生态系统功能对物种丧失的脆弱性。这些方法和途径有助于探索藻类形态和功能之间的关系，并提供对海藻多样性变化的功能后果的见解，有可能改变对海洋生物多样性的理解。在将海藻的功能特征、功能群和在社区和生态系统层面进程中的作用联系起来方面的这些进展加强了对生物多样性变化--特别是沿环境梯度和物种范围--的影响的预测，并成为从机制上理解物种在社区和生态系统中作用的模板。这是一个由国家科学基金会地球科学局(NSF/GEO)和英国国家环境研究委员会(NERC)通过NSF/GEO-NERC牵头机构协议联合资助的项目。该协定允许美国和英国提交一个单一的联合提案，并由该机构进行同行审查，该机构的调查员在预算中所占比例最大。在成功地共同确定奖项建议后，每个机构将为支持各自国家机构科学家的预算比例提供资金。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并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。

Humans are modifying the diversity of life on Earth, changing the number and composition of species in ecosystems. It is essential to understand how these changes will affect how natural systems function. This project evaluates a promising method for predicting the impacts of biodiversity change by linking species’ physical characteristics – their shapes and forms – to the key roles that they play in communities and ecosystems. These links between traits and emergent roles are poorly described, especially in coastal marine environments. This project involves screening the traits of seaweed species along gradients in environmental conditions on rocky shorelines – tide height, exposure to heavy surf, and latitude – along the U.S. West Coast and (via a partnership with the Natural Environment Research Council in the United Kingdom) the coast of Europe. This project includes experiments and outreach in regions with substantial exposure to the public, and the investigators will work with community, university, and museum outreach personnel to communicate this research to broader audiences. The project includes mechanisms for curriculum development and outreach and trains undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in marine science. The project also supports a visual arts exhibit for public display that illustrates the loss of seaweed species. The investigators are using a suite of innovative approaches to understand the links between functional traits and emergent functional attributes of seaweeds, providing an unprecedented dataset linking seaweed morphology, physiology, and ecology: (i) characterizing the functional structure of seaweed communities and how that structure changes across environmental gradients, (ii) evaluating how that suite of easily measured traits is related to physiological and ecological processes, (iii) measuring species and traits at multiple sites along U.S. and European coastlines spanning gradients in latitude, wave exposure, and tidal elevation, and (iv) evaluating changes in functional redundancy along these gradients to quantify vulnerability of community interactions and ecosystem functioning to species loss These methods and approaches facilitate exploration of relationships between algal form and function and provide insights into the functional consequences of changes in seaweed diversity, with the potential to transform understanding of marine biodiversity across levels of biological organization. These advances in linking seaweeds’ functional traits, functional groups, and roles in community- and ecosystem-level processes enhance prediction of the impacts of changing biodiversity – especially along environmental gradients and species ranges – and serve as a template for a mechanistic understanding of the roles of species in communities and ecosystems.This is a project jointly funded by the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Geosciences (NSF/GEO) and the National Environment Research Council (NERC) of the United Kingdom (UK) via the NSF/GEO-NERC Lead Agency Agreement. This Agreement allows a single joint US/UK proposal to be submitted and peer-reviewed by the Agency whose investigator has the largest proportion of the budget. Upon successful joint determination of an award recommendation, each Agency funds the proportion of the budget that supports scientists at institutions in their respective countries.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.