CAREER: Integrating Seascapes and Energy Flow: learning and teaching about energy, biodiversity, and ecosystem function on the frontlines of climate change.

沿海沼泽提供了一系列支持自然和人类社区的重要功能。人类经常认为理所当然地利用这些生态系统服务，但没有充分理解这些过程与更广泛的生态系统的生态反馈、联系和相互依赖性。随着对沿海生态系统服务的需求不断增加，由于人类活动的直接和间接影响，沼泽遭受了巨大损失。路易斯安那州快速变化的沿海生态系统为了解沿海变化如何改变生态系统功能提供了一个自然实验。该项目正在开发新的指标和工具，以评估路易斯安那州沿海食物网的变异性并测试有关生物多样性和生态系统功能的假设。 该研究正在确定改变栖息地结构如何改变多营养系统中整个海景的能量分布。这项工作让路易斯安那大学拉斐特大学和迪拉德大学的学生参与基于实地的学习，让他们沉浸在研究和当地恢复工作中，以解决土地流失问题并保护关键的生态系统服务。通过正式课程、定向实地工作和外展活动，学生们对沿海地区面临的复杂问题有了更深入的了解。学生们正在与目前正在应对沿海变化的利益相关者和管理者进行互动。他们的定向研究项目正在记录沿海栖息地的变化，并将这些知识与对生态系统和依赖生态系统的人们的影响结合起来。通过参与该项目，学生们获得了知识和培训，使他们成为知识渊博的公民和沿海生态系统未来的有能力的管理者，同时也为他们在 STEM 领域的职业生涯做好了准备。该项目正在支持两名研究生和一名博士后。能量通过食物网的转化和运动是生物多样性和生态系统功能之间的关键联系。测试生物多样性生态系统功能理论的一个主要障碍是评估食物网随时间和空间变化的能力有限。这项研究正在量化不断变化的海景结构、物种多样性和食物网结构，以更好地了解生物多样性和生态系统能量流之间的关系。该项目使用尖端工具和指标来测试有关生态系统变化如何改变关键物种的分布、丰度和多样性以及其如何影响功能的假设。推动这项研究的假设是：1）栖息地是营养结构的间接驱动因素，而不是主要营养途径的直接变化； 2）水平和垂直多样性随着栖息地资源指数的增加而增加。稳定同位素分析表征了食物网中的能量流。多营养系统中水平和垂直多样性的变化正在通过航空调查和现场采样进行量化。为了评估食物网资源的空间和时间变化，该项目结合了稳定同位素分析和基于无人机的遥感技术的结果，以生成特定于消费者的能量海景图（E-scapes）和营养位指标。结合这些新指标，可以深入了解物种对整个海景和时间范围内食物网功能变化的反应。该项目由生物海洋学和刺激竞争性研究既定计划 (EPSCoR) 共同资助。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Coastal marshes provide a suite of vital functions that support natural and human communities. Humans frequently take for granted and exploit these ecosystem services without fully understanding the ecological feedbacks, linkages, and interdependencies of these processes to the wider ecosystem. As demands on coastal ecosystem services have risen, marshes have experienced substantial loss due to direct and indirect impacts from human activity. The rapidly changing coastal ecosystems of Louisiana provide a natural experiment for understanding how coastal change alters ecosystem function. This project is developing new metrics and tools to assess food web variability and test hypotheses on biodiversity and ecosystem function in coastal Louisiana. The research is determining how changing habitat configuration alters the distribution of energy across the seascape in a multitrophic system. This work is engaging students from the University of Louisiana Lafayette and Dillard University in placed-based learning by immersing them in the research and local restoration efforts to address land loss and preserve critical ecosystem services. Students are developing a deeper understanding of the complex issues facing coastal regions through formal course work, directed field work, and outreach. Students are interacting with stakeholders and managers who are currently battling coastal change. Their directed research projects are documenting changes in coastal habitat and coupling this knowledge with the consequences to ecosystems and the people who depend on them. By participating in the project students are emerging with knowledge and training that is making them into informed citizens and capable stewards of the future of our coastal ecosystems, while also preparing them for careers in STEM. The project is supporting two graduate students and a post-doc.The transformation and movement of energy through a food web are key links between biodiversity and ecosystem function. A major hurdle to testing biodiversity ecosystem function theory is a limited ability to assess food web variability in space and time. This research is quantifying changing seascape structure, species diversity, and food web structure to better understand the relationship between biodiversity and energy flow through ecosystems. The project uses cutting edge tools and metrics to test hypotheses on how the distribution, abundance, and diversity of key species are altered by ecosystem change and how this affects function. The hypotheses driving the research are: 1) habitat is a more important indirect driver of trophic structure than a direct change to primary trophic pathways; and 2) horizontal and vertical diversity increases with habitat resource index. Stable isotope analysis is characterizing energy flow through the food web. Changes in horizontal and vertical diversity in a multitrophic system are being quantified using aerial surveys and field sampling. To assess the spatial and temporal change in food web resources, the project is combining results from stable isotope analysis and drone-based remote sensing technology to generate consumer specific energetic seascape maps (E-scapes) and trophic niche metrics. In combination these new metrics are providing insight into species’ responses to changing food web function across the seascape and through time.This project is jointly funded by Biological Oceanography and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.