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重要的功能，支持自然和人类社区。人类经常认为这些生态系统服务是理所当然的，但却没有充分了解这些过程对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需求的增加，由于人类活动的直接和间接影响，沼泽遭受了大量损失。路易斯安那州快速变化的海岸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指标和工具来评估食物网的变异性，并测试路易斯安那州沿海生物多样性和生态系统功能的假设。这项研究旨在确定在一个多营养系统中，栖息地结构的变化是如何改变整个海景的能量分布的。这项工作让路易斯安那大学拉斐特分校和迪拉德大学的学生参与到基于地点的学习中，让他们沉浸在研究和当地恢复工作中，以解决土地流失和保护关键的生态系统服务。学生们正在通过正式的课程作业、有指导的实地工作和外展活动，对沿海地区面临的复杂问题有更深的理解。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者进行互动。他们的指导研究项目是记录沿海栖息地的变化，并将这些知识与生态系统和依赖生态系统的人们的后果联系起来。通过参与该项目，学生们正在获得知识和培训，使他们成为知情的公民和我们沿海生态系统未来的有能力的管家，同时也为他们在STEM领域的职业生涯做好准备。该项目资助两名研究生和一名博士后。通过食物网的能量转化和运动是生物多样性和生态系统功能之间的关键环节。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变化的能力有限。本研究通过量化变化的海景结构、物种多样性和食物网结构来更好地理解生物多样性与生态系统能量流之间的关系。该项目使用尖端的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。驱动本研究的假设是：1)生境是营养结构的间接驱动因素，而不是直接改变初级营养途径；水平和垂直多样性随生境资源指数的增加而增加。稳定同位素分析是表征通过食物网的能量流。利用航空调查和实地抽样，对多营养系统中水平和垂直多样性的变化进行了量化。为了评估食物网资源的时空变化，该项目结合了稳定同位素分析和无人机遥感技术的结果，生成了消费者特定的能量景观图（e- scape）和营养生态位指标。结合这些新指标，我们可以深入了解物种对整个海景和时间变化的食物网功能的反应。该项目由生物海洋学和促进竞争性研究的既定计划（EPSCoR）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。

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.