Collaborative Research: Whole Ecosystem Test of Restoring Resilience in Lakes

由于气候和其他人类活动引起的环境变化，生态系统普遍面临失去弹性的风险。复原力是指生态系统在面对变化时保持其当前状态的能力。丧失复原力会损害人类福祉，因为它会导致土地和水资源的损失。能够衡量和管理复原力对于适应这些重大变化至关重要。研究人员将进行一项生态系统实验，旨在提高湖泊对藻类水华的适应能力。藻类大量繁殖威胁饮用水，减少旅游业，并损害野生动物。该实验的主要目标是测试弹性是否可以增强，并评估三种弹性指标的表现。这项实验将促进我们对生态系统弹性的理解，评估跟踪对政策制定至关重要的环境变化的方法，并提供管理见解。研究结果和弹性指标的评估将通过研究团队举办的研讨会与湖泊管理者分享。这项研究不仅适用于湖泊，还可以应用于其他生态系统的管理，如草原和森林。为了测试光照是否会改变对营养负荷的弹性，研究人员将试验性地向两个湖泊中添加氮和磷，以促进藻类水华。其中一个湖泊被高度污染，因此光线利用率很低。另一种是相对清晰的，具有更高的光能利用率。第三个不会接受营养添加的湖泊将作为参考生态系统。研究人员将高频测量藻类色素、溶解氧和pH值，以监测藻类水华。将使用生态系统模型、动态统计指标和平均退出时间来评估弹性。这三种量化复原力的方法为评估生态系统变化提供了一种新的途径。人们的预期是，与清澈的湖泊相比，受污染的湖泊中藻类水华对营养物质添加的弹性将更高，因为光的可获得性较低。为了验证这一假设，在实验的第二年，研究人员将向清澈的湖泊中添加一种商业染料，旨在吸收光线。人们的期望是，这将使清澈的湖泊更具弹性，因为营养物质的增加，藻类大量繁殖，类似于被污染的湖泊。这项实验的结果和复原力指标的评估将通过研究团队举办的研讨会与湖泊管理者分享。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。

Ecosystems are at widespread risk of losing resilience due to environmental changes from climate and other human actions. Resilience is the ability of an ecosystem to maintain its current state in the face of variability. The loss of resilience harms human well-being because it can lead to the loss of land and water resources. Being able to measure and manage resilience is essential for adapting to these large changes. The researchers will perform an ecosystem experiment aimed at increasing resilience to algal blooms in lakes. Algal blooms threaten drinking water, reduce tourism, and harm wildlife. The primary goal of the experiment is to test if resilience can be enhanced and assess the performance of three resilience metrics. This experiment will advance our understanding of ecosystem resilience, evaluate methods for tracking environmental change critical for policymaking, and provide management insight. The results and the evaluation of the resilience metrics will be shared with lake managers through workshops hosted by the research team.The research is not only applicable to lakes but could be applied to manage other ecosystems such as grasslands and forests.To test if light availability changes resilience to nutrient loading, the researchers will experimentally add nitrogen and phosphorus to two lakes to encourage an algal bloom. One of the lakes is highly stained and therefore has low light availability. The other is relatively clear with higher light availability. A third lake that will not receive nutrient additions will serve as a reference ecosystem. The researchers will measure algal pigments, dissolved oxygen, and pH at a high frequency to monitor algal blooms. Resilience will be evaluated with ecosystem models, dynamic statistical indicators, and mean exit time. These three methods for quantifying resilience provide a new approach to evaluating ecosystem change. The expectation is that resilience of algal blooms to nutrient additions will be higher in the stained lake compared to the clear lake due to lower light availability. To test this hypothesis, in the second year of the experiment the researchers will add a commercial dye to the clear lake, designed to absorb light. The expectation is that this will make the clear lake more resilient algal blooms from nutrient additions, similar to the stained lake. The results of this experiment and the evaluation of the resilience metrics will be shared with lake managers through workshops hosted by the research team.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.