LTER: MCR IV: Long-Term Dynamics of a Coral Reef Ecosystem

珊瑚礁为社会提供了重要的利益，从食物到特殊的生物多样性，再到海岸线保护和娱乐，但它们受到自然干扰和人类活动的威胁，包括那些引起全球范围变化的干扰。这些压力越来越多地导致珊瑚礁经历巨大的、往往是突然的生态变化，珊瑚正在被海藻或其他不受欢迎的生物取代。从历史上看，对珊瑚礁造成干扰的主要因素是强大的风暴，但近几十年来，随着海洋表面水域温度的持续上升，海洋热浪导致的大规模珊瑚白化事件变得更加频繁和严重。珊瑚礁进一步受到当地人类活动的压力，这些活动造成营养污染，并消耗控制海藻生长的草食性鱼类。研究珊瑚礁如何在不同程度的营养污染和捕捞下对这两类干扰作出反应，可以提供基本信息，说明是什么影响了珊瑚礁缓冲环境变化和干扰的能力，而不会崩溃到持续退化的状态。Moorea珊瑚礁长期生态研究计划(MCR LTER)的基本目标是了解珊瑚礁随时间变化的方式和原因，评估这些变化的后果，并提供维持珊瑚礁生态系统及其提供的重要社会服务所需的科学知识。这项研究增进了对珊瑚礁的了解和管理，使所有关心这一具有生态、经济和文化重要性的生态系统福利的群体受益。除学术界外，还将科学成果传达给感兴趣的个人、非政府组织、土著社区和政府实体。这些调查结果还通过一个多管齐下的计划整合到K-12、本科生、研究生和公共教育活动中，该计划包括基于探究的课程、基于互动和媒体的公共教育计划以及基于互联网的资源。儿童权利委员会的研究、培训、教育和外联工作都强调扩大对STEM领域的参与，加强STEM扫盲，特别是海洋科学领域边缘化群体的扫盲。新的研究活动建立在MCR LTER对海洋珊瑚礁的长期观察和广泛的生态理解的强大基础上，以解决以下核心问题：不断变化的干扰制度(除了气旋风暴外，反复出现的热浪)如何改变珊瑚礁的复原力，以及改变复原力的生态后果是什么？研究活动围绕一个统一的框架组织，明确阐述珊瑚礁群落如何受到珊瑚捕杀干扰的性质和历史的影响，以及这些对干扰的反应如何受到当地人类应激源模式的影响。新的研究回答了三个焦点问题：(1)移除(风暴)或保留(热浪)死珊瑚骨骼的不同干扰类型如何影响群落动态、生态状态的突变和复原力？(2)局部应激源如何与新的干扰机制相互作用，在群落动态、生态系统过程和空间复原力中创造空间异质性？以及(3)珊瑚和珊瑚礁群落的哪些属性影响它们在当前和未来环境条件下保持弹性的能力？这些问题提供了一个无与伦比的机会来测试假设和推进关于生态弹性和突然生态变化的原因和后果的理论，这在水生和陆地生态系统中具有广泛的相关性。这一奖项反映了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。

Coral reefs provide important benefits to society, from food to exceptional biodiversity to shoreline protection and recreation, but they are threatened by natural perturbations and human activities, including those causing global-scale changes. These pressures increasingly are causing coral reefs to undergo large, often abrupt, ecological changes where corals are being replaced by seaweeds or other undesirable organisms. Historically, the major agent of disturbance to coral reefs has been powerful storms, but in recent decades, episodes of mass coral bleaching from marine heat waves have become more frequent and severe as the temperature of ocean surface waters continues to rise. Coral reefs are further stressed by local human activities that cause nutrient pollution and deplete herbivorous fishes that control growth of seaweeds. Studying how coral reefs respond to these two types of disturbance under different levels of nutrient pollution and fishing provides essential information on what affects the ability of coral reefs to buffer environmental change and disturbances without collapsing to a persistent, degraded condition. The fundamental goals of the Moorea Coral Reef Long Term Ecological Research program (MCR LTER) are to understand how and why coral reefs change over time, to assess the consequences of these changes, and to contribute scientific knowledge needed to sustain coral reef ecosystems and the important societal services they provide. This research improves understanding and management of coral reefs, which benefits all groups concerned with the welfare of this ecologically, economically and culturally important ecosystem. In addition to academic communities, scientific findings are communicated to interested individuals, non-governmental organizations, indigenous communities and governmental entities. These findings also are integrated into K-12, undergraduate, graduate and public education activities through a multi-pronged program that includes inquiry-based curricula, interactive and media-based public education programs, and internet-based resources. MCR’s research, training, education and outreach efforts all emphasize broadening participation in STEM fields and strengthening STEM literacy, particularly from marginalized groups in marine science. New research activities build on MCR LTER’s powerful foundation of long-term observations and broad ecological understanding of oceanic coral reefs to address the following core issues: How is the changing disturbance regime (recurrent heat waves in addition to cyclonic storms) altering the resilience of coral reefs, and what are the ecological consequences of altered resilience? Research activities are organized around a unifying framework that explicitly addresses how reef communities are affected by the nature and history of coral-killing disturbances, and how those responses to disturbance are influenced by the pattern of local human stressors. New studies answer three focal questions: (1) How do different disturbance types, which either remove (storms) or retain (heat waves) dead coral skeletons, affect community dynamics, abrupt changes in ecological state, and resilience? (2) How do local stressors interact with new disturbance regimes to create spatial heterogeneity in community dynamics, ecosystem processes, and spatial resilience? And (3) What attributes of coral and coral reef communities influence their capacity to remain resilient under current and future environmental conditions? These questions provide an unparalleled opportunity to test hypotheses and advance theory regarding ecological resilience and the causes and consequences of abrupt ecological change, which is broadly relevant across aquatic and terrestrial ecosystems.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.