CAREER: Species Interactions of Coral Reef Benthic Cyanobacterial Mats: Within-Mat Diversity Promotes Both Facilitation and Top-Down Control

职业：珊瑚礁底栖蓝藻垫的物种相互作用：垫内多样性促进便利化和自上而下的控制

• 批准号: 2239425
• 负责人: Sophie McCoy
• 金额: $ 147.09万
• 依托单位: University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-01-15 至 2028-06-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2239425&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Species; Interactions; Coral; Reef

Nuisance algal blooms are a massive conservation challenge to global ecosystems. Benthic cyanobacterial mats (BCMs) can be persistent in time and spatially expansive on coral reefs, posing additional environmental threats through physical smothering of and chemical interactions with other reef organisms, including corals. This research seeks to understand processes that lead to bloom longevity, such as metabolic cooperation between microbial species, and to study natural mechanisms of bloom control, such as the combination of large-bodied predators, reef fish, and viruses. The research team leverages research results towards coral reef management to develop globally-applicable SCUBA diver interventions to control cyanobacterial blooms and develops training materials and lead workshops for the Caribbean dive and snorkel tourism industries to scale up the use of diver interventions over the 5-year project. The education plan focuses on high-investment training of undergraduate research interns from UNC’s transfer student population together with training opportunities for postdoctoral researchers, graduate, undergraduate, and high school students, generates data to be integrated into publicly available undergraduate-level bioinformatics case studies, and develops K-12 educational materials through the International Microbiology Literacy Initiative.Understanding ecological processes that lead to prolonged blooms are a major research gap addressed by this research, which focuses on metabolic facilitation and top-down controls on BCMs. The research makes three major contributions to our knowledge of the functional ecology of marine cyanobacterial mats via (1) mechanistic characterization of within-mat metabolic handoffs, (2) identification of viral-driven changes to within-mat metabolic cooperation, and (3) description of interactions between micro- (viral) and macro-scale (fish) predation. Regardless of whether specific hypotheses are supported, the data generated by this research greatly advance the field of viral trophic ecology by testing ecological theory using a mechanistic hypothesis to understand biogeochemical outcomes of functional mosaics between density-dependent lysis-lysogeny switches. This project is expected to produce evidence for the roles of cooperative interactions among mat-building bacteria and bloom control by multiple predators including reef fish and viruses. Viral ecology is difficult to study in natural microbial systems, and thus this project contributes to our knowledge about the ecological roles of viruses in natural contexts.This award is supported by the Biological Oceanography and Ocean Education Programs.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.

滋扰藻类血液是对全球生态系统的巨大保护挑战。底栖蓝细菌垫（BCMS）可以在时间上持续存在，并在空间上广泛地在珊瑚礁上进行广泛的范围，从而通过与其他珊瑚礁生物（包括珊瑚）的物理窒息和化学相互作用来构成额外的环境威胁。这项研究试图理解导致绽放寿命的过程，例如微生物物种之间的代谢合作，并研究花朵控制的自然机制，例如大型捕食者，礁鱼和病毒的结合。研究小组利用研究结果使珊瑚礁管理开发全球可施加的水肺潜水员干预措施，以控制蓝细菌血液，并为加勒比海潜水和浮潜旅游业开发培训材料和主持研讨会，以扩大5年项目的潜水员干预措施的使用。该教育计划的重点是对UNC转学学生群体的本科研究实习生的高昂投资培训，以及为博士后研究人员，研究生，大学生和高中生的培训机会，生成数据，生成数据，将数据纳入公立可用的本科生本科生级别的生物信息学案例研究中，并通过国际Mirdoby ofical docipation.sology.sopition.sopition.sportive.这项研究解决了一个重大的研究差距，该研究重点介绍了BCMS上的代谢设施和自上而下的控制。这项研究通过（1）通过（1）MAT代谢内部交易的机械表征来了解我们对海洋蓝细菌垫的功能生态学的三个主要贡献，（2）鉴定了病毒驱动的变化对MAT代谢内部合作的变化，以及（3）对微型（病毒）和MACRO-SCALE（FISH）（FISH）的相互作用的描述。不管是否支持特定的假设，这项研究产生的数据很大程度上进步，通过使用机械假说来了解生物地球化学的生物地球化学结局，从而了解病毒营养生态学的领域。预计该项目将产生证据证明由包括礁鱼和病毒在内的多个捕食者控制Mat构建细菌和Bloom控制之间合作相互作用的作用。病毒生态学在天然微生物系统中很难研究，因此该项目有助于我们对病毒在自然环境中的生态作用的了解。该奖项得到了生物海洋学和海洋教育计划的支持。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过使用该基金会的智力优点和广泛的影响来评估NSF的法定任务。