The influence of biophysical coupling and cross-scale interactions on ecosystems of the Plum Island LTER

生物物理耦合和跨尺度相互作用对普拉姆岛LTER生态系统的影响

• 批准号: 2308605
• 负责人: David Kimbro
• 金额: $ 99.59万
• 依托单位: Northeastern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-01 至 2027-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2308605&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: influence; biophysical; coupling; cross; scale

Identifying the biological and environmental factors that govern the geographical distribution of organisms is critical for understanding the functioning of natural ecosystems and the myriad benefits that they provide to society. For example, salt marsh ecosystems serve as critical transition zones at the land-sea interface and provide key ecosystem services such as improving water quality via removal of excess nutrients from terrestrial run-off and mitigating coastal erosion via shoreline buffering. This project leverages a combination of field surveys, lab experiments, and mathematical models to predict how the geographical distribution of organisms responsible for these critical ecosystem services is influenced by biological interactions (e.g., competition and predation) as well as environmental factors (e.g., temperature and physical disturbance) that vary with oceanographic currents across a range of New England salt marsh locations. The broader impacts of the project include cross-training of graduate students in biology, statistics, mathematical modeling, and computer programming. In addition, the results of this project will be shared with the Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network and will be integrated into undergraduate courses in biostatistics, mathematical modeling, and experimental design in order to demonstrate the importance of quantitative and interdisciplinary STEM training for addressing important questions in community and ecosystem ecology. Finally, multiple interactive web modules will be created to enhance the dissemination of the results of this research beyond traditional academic circles, including Northeastern University’s K-12 outreach programs.The overall aim of this project is to determine whether understanding and predicting the dynamics of multi-trophic salt marsh ecosystems across multiple scales hinges upon the integration of physical oceanographic processes and their influence on the supply of allochthonous inputs. This project will be conducted at NSF’s Plum Island LTER and consists of four objectives: (1) repeated surveys of permanently established study plots across three nested spatial scales to quantify the magnitude of allochthonous inputs and the community structure of both marine and terrestrial food webs, allowing an assessment of whether the spatiotemporal distributions of allochthonous inputs and food web architectures are consistent with their putative physical oceanographic drivers; (2) a field experiment that manipulates a gradient in the magnitude of detrital input as well as top-down control by marine fish across three nested spatial scales, enabling an assessment of whether observed survey patterns are driven by bottom-up vs. top-down processes; (3) a fully factorial lab experiment to further disentangle the role of the top-down control by marine fish vs. terrestrial spiders on key ecosystem processes such as primary production, decomposition, herbivory, and predation across a gradient of detrital inputs; and (4) development of a field-parameterized, spatially-explicit mathematical model to determine the independent and joint influences of bottom-up forcing and top-down control on the salt marsh community structure across scales. By combining models and field experiments in a biophysical-allochthonous input framework, this project will leverage the mechanistic insights traditionally associated with community ecology to reveal the joint influence of local and broad-scale processes on the hierarchically organized dynamics of open ecological systems. This project will help inform resource management for New England salt marshes and promote public education by highlighting the importance of quantitative and interdisciplinary STEM training for addressing important questions in biology.This project is jointly funded by Biological Oceanography and the Ecosystems Science Cluster.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.

识别控制生物地理分布的生物和环境因素对于理解自然生态系统的功能及其为社会提供的无数利益至关重要。例如，盐沼生态系统作为海陆界面的关键过渡带，提供关键的生态系统服务，如通过从陆地径流中去除多余的营养物质来改善水质，通过岸线缓冲来减轻海岸侵蚀。该项目结合了实地调查、实验室实验和数学模型，以预测在新英格兰盐沼地区，生物相互作用（如竞争和捕食）和环境因素（如温度和物理干扰）如何影响这些关键生态系统服务的生物的地理分布。该项目的更广泛影响包括交叉训练研究生在生物学，统计学，数学建模和计算机编程。此外，该项目的结果将与梅岛生态系统长期生态研究（LTER）网络共享，并将整合到生物统计学，数学建模和实验设计的本科课程中，以证明定量和跨学科STEM培训对于解决社区和生态系统生态学中的重要问题的重要性。最后，将创建多个交互式网络模块，以加强该研究结果在传统学术界之外的传播，包括东北大学的K-12外展计划。该项目的总体目标是确定理解和预测多营养盐沼生态系统在多个尺度上的动态是否取决于物理海洋学过程及其对外来输入供应的影响的整合。该项目将在美国国家科学基金会的梅岛研究中心进行，包括四个目标：(1)在三个嵌套的空间尺度上对永久建立的研究地块进行重复调查，以量化外来输入的大小和海洋和陆地食物网的群落结构，从而评估外来输入和食物网结构的时空分布是否与其假定的物理海洋学驱动因素一致；(2)在三个嵌套空间尺度上，通过对海洋鱼类碎屑输入量梯度和自上而下控制的现场实验，可以评估观察到的调查模式是由自下而上还是自上而下的过程驱动的；(3)通过全因子实验室实验，进一步阐明海洋鱼类与陆地蜘蛛自上而下控制在不同碎屑输入梯度下初级生产、分解、草食和捕食等关键生态系统过程中的作用；(4)建立了场参数化的空间显式数学模型，以确定自下而上强迫和自上而下控制对盐沼群落结构的独立和联合影响。通过在生物物理-异域输入框架中结合模型和实地实验，该项目将利用传统上与群落生态学相关的机制见解，揭示局部和大尺度过程对开放生态系统分层组织动态的共同影响。该项目将通过强调定量和跨学科STEM培训对解决生物学重要问题的重要性，为新英格兰盐沼的资源管理提供信息，并促进公众教育。本项目由生物海洋学和生态系统科学集群共同资助。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。