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

沿海沼泽提供了一套支持自然和人类社区的重要功能。人类经常认为这些生态系统服务是理所当然的，并在没有充分了解这些过程对更广泛生态系统的生态反馈、联系和相互依赖的情况下利用这些服务。随着对沿海生态系统服务需求的上升，由于人类活动的直接和间接影响，沼泽遭受了重大损失。路易斯安那州快速变化的沿海生态系统为理解海岸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衡量标准和工具，以评估食物网的可变性，并测试路易斯安那州沿海地区生物多样性和生态系统功能的假设。这项研究正在确定，在一个多营养系统中，栖息地配置的变化如何改变海景中的能量分配。这项工作吸引了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位置的学习，让他们沉浸在解决土地流失和保护关键生态系统服务的研究和当地恢复工作中。通过正式的课程作业、有指导的实地作业和外展，学生们对沿海地区面临的复杂问题有了更深的理解。学生们正在与目前正在与沿海变化作斗争的利益相关者和管理人员互动。他们有针对性的研究项目正在记录沿海栖息地的变化，并将这一知识与对生态系统和依赖它们的人的后果结合起来。通过参与该项目，学生将获得知识和培训，使他们成为见多识广的公民和有能力管理我们沿海生态系统未来的人，同时也为他们在STEM工作做好准备。该项目支持两名研究生和一名博士后。能量通过食物网的转化和移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在空间和时间上的可变性的能力有限。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络结构，以更好地了解生物多样性与生态系统能量流动之间的关系。该项目使用尖端工具和指标来测试关于生态系统变化如何改变关键物种的分布、丰度和多样性以及这如何影响功能的假设。研究的假设是：1)生境是营养结构的一个更重要的间接驱动因素，而不是主要营养途径的直接改变；2)水平和垂直多样性随着生境资源指数的增加而增加。稳定同位素分析是描述通过食物链的能量流动的特征。多营养系统中水平和垂直多样性的变化正在利用航空调查和实地采样进行量化。为了评估食物网络资源的时空变化，该项目正在结合稳定同位素分析和基于无人机的遥感技术的结果，以生成消费者特定的能量海景地图(E-scape)和营养生态位指标。这些新的指标结合在一起，提供了物种对整个海景和随时间变化的食物网功能的反应的洞察力。该项目由生物海洋学和既定的刺激竞争研究计划(EPSCoR)联合资助。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.