BoCP Design: US-China-Sao Paulo: Functional Biodiversity in Streams on a Changing Planet in Tropical, Subtropical, and Temperate Climates

人类通过将自然土地覆盖转化为人类使用，在全球范围内改变了维持生物多样性的基本过程。淡水生态系统受到全球土地利用变化的不成比例的影响，水生昆虫近年来急剧减少。该项目将连接三大洲温带、亚热带和热带地区的生物多样性的三个维度，以全面了解人类土地利用如何影响水生生物，特别是卡迪蝇，这是一种高度多样化和分布广泛的水生昆虫。确定响应土地利用变化的水生生态系统健康的广泛模式是保护生态学的一个主要目标，但数十年来，研究一直在努力实现这一目标，主要原因有两个，本研究针对这两个原因。首先，大多数生物多样性研究只考虑物种的数量(“分类多样性”)。分类多样性是不完整的，因为它没有提供关于以下方面的信息：(A)生物体在其环境中发挥的实际作用(“功能多样性”)，或(B)物种之间共同的进化历史如何导致它们对土地利用变化作出类似的反应(“系统发育多样性”)。确定广泛适用模式的第二个障碍是，大多数实地研究仅在一个地区进行，因此得出的结论仅限于该地区。该项目将有助于收集和鉴定三大洲的瓢虫物种，提供国际培训和联网机会，并在巴西和中国举办水生昆虫鉴定讲习班。它还将在巴西和中国启动长期的污染监测项目，并将培训20多名本科生和研究生以及博士后研究人员。该项目将专注于蝉--一种高度多样化、分布广泛、濒临灭绝的水生昆虫。该项目团队将在不同土地利用变化的溪流中对幼虫和成虫进行采样--从流域主要包含自然土地覆盖的溪流，到主要转化为农业和/或城市化的溪流。这项工作将同时在世界上三个主要的生物群中进行：美国东南部的温带蓝岭生态区，中国东南部的亚热带钱塘江，以及巴西南部的热带帕拉纳帕内马河流域。该项目包括克莱姆森大学(CU，美国)、EStudal Paulista大学(Unesp，巴西)和南京农业大学(Njau，中国)的研究人员之间正在开发的合作，研究人员将在各自的国家进行实地工作。此外，加州大学的研究人员将把现代动物与1969年和20世纪80年代从同一条河流采集的动物样本进行比较，并将前往中国和巴西教授水生昆虫识别课程，并运送标本进行DNA测序。Njau的研究人员将进行尖端遗传分析，以计算系统发育多样性和识别幼虫，Unesp的合作者将提供社区分析和空间统计方面的专业知识。该项目将1)建立一个横贯大陆的、多维的蚯蚓多样性数据库；2)量化三大洲不同生态区人类土地利用变化的多维蚯蚓响应；3)量化区域内随时间变化的蚯蚓群落的同质化。该项目将提供新的推论和信息，以帮助识别快速变化的星球上的威胁和减缓水生生物多样性的丧失。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 have globally altered the fundamental processes maintaining biodiversity by converting natural land cover for human uses. Freshwater ecosystems have been disproportionally impacted by global land use change, with aquatic insects experiencing sharp declines in recent years. This project will link the three dimensions of biodiversity across temperate, subtropical, and tropical regions on three continents to provide comprehensive understanding of how human land use affects aquatic life, in particular caddisflies, a highly diverse and widespread group of aquatic insects. Identifying broad patterns of aquatic ecosystem health in response to land use change is a major goal of conservation ecology, but research has struggled for decades with this goal for two main reasons, which this study address. First, most biodiversity research has considered only the number of species (“taxonomic diversity”). Taxonomic diversity is incomplete because it does not provide information about (a) the actual roles the organisms play in their environment (“functional diversity”), or (b) how shared evolutionary history among species may cause them to respond similarly to land use change (“phylogenetic diversity”). The second roadblock for identifying broadly applicable patterns is that most field studies are conducted only in a single region, limiting resulting conclusions to that region. This project will contribute to the collections and identification of caddisfly species across three continents, provide international training and networking opportunities, and deliver aquatic insect identification workshops in both Brazil and China. It will also launch long-term pollution-monitoring programs in Brazil and China and will train a diverse group of over 20 undergraduate and graduate students, as well as postdoctoral researchers.This project will focus on caddisflies—a highly diverse, widespread, and imperiled group of aquatic insects. The project team will sample larval and adult caddisflies in streams across gradients of land use change—from streams whose watersheds contain mostly natural land cover, to those that have been largely converted to agriculture and/or urbanization. Work will occur simultaneously in three of the world’s major biomes: the temperate Blue Ridge ecoregion of the southeastern United States, the subtropical Qiantang River of southeastern China, and the tropical Paranapanema River basin of southern Brazil. This project consists of a developing collaboration between researchers at Clemson University (CU, United States), Universidade Estudal Paulista (UNESP, Brazil), and Nanjing Agricultural University (NJAU, China) in which researchers will conduct field work in their respective nations. In addition, CU researchers will compare modern fauna with fauna sampled from the same streams in 1969 and the 1980s and will travel to China and Brazil to teach aquatic insect identification courses and to transport specimens for DNA sequencing. Researchers at NJAU will conduct cutting-edge genetic analyses to enable calculation of phylogenetic diversity and identification of larvae, and collaborators at UNESP will provide expertise in community analysis and spatial statistics. This project will 1) build a trans-continental, multidimensional database of caddisfly diversity; 2) quantify multidimensional caddisfly responses to human land use change in different ecoregions on three continents; and 3) quantify homogenization of caddisfly assemblages within regions through time. This project will provide new inferences and information to help identify threats and slow aquatic biodiversity loss on a rapidly changing planet.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.