Bench to benthos - predicting ecological community assembly using seagrass restoration

了解物种如何在它们以前失去的地区重新定居，在使用保护方法恢复这些栖息地后组建新的生态群落，对于确保尽可能有效地利用我们有限的资源，最大限度地提高我们从自然生态系统中获得的利益至关重要。例如，海草草甸提供海岸稳定、生物多样性增强、养分循环，是全球蓝色碳捕获的来源，但由于疾病、污染和沿海开发，英国海岸周围的海草草甸已经大量消失。我们正在引领英国和全球努力，成功地恢复有弹性的海草草甸，以确保子孙后代将受益于它们提供的关键生态系统服务。先前研究生态群落组合的工作已经确定了影响最终结果的四个主要过程：(i)每个物种的生物学与当地栖息地的适应程度（生态位选择）；（ii）个体从一个地方移动到另一个地方的容易程度（分散）；（iii）随机事件在促进或减少成功（生态漂变）方面的重要性；（iv）物种基因的变异以一种对它们有利的方式积累的速度有多快（基因多样化）。这项工作通常是用简化的实验室实验来进行的，比如用细菌等微生物，或者用数学方程和计算机来预测重新定植的模式是如何随着时间的推移而发展的。其他方法依赖于通过使用社区的当前快照来推断与社区聚集有关的历史机制，这可能受到我们无法控制的因素的强烈影响。虽然这些方法是建立我们对不同生态组装过程重要性的理解的重要的第一步，但我们缺乏来自更复杂的自然生态系统的数据和证据，在他们重新组装之旅的开始，以适当地测试理论进展的现实应用。这种增加的自然复杂性可能会引入令人惊讶或意想不到的新特征，这些特征是以前的工作无法解释或预测的。我们的项目将结合以前基于实验室和数学的方法的见解，以及生活在海草根和叶子上的微生物的现场数据，这些数据来自最近恢复的英国海草草甸（1至5岁）。在海草恢复的早期阶段，我们将开发和测试关于上述四个组装过程的相对重要性的新预测。重要的是，我们还将建立一个全球研究人员网络，为海草恢复的后期阶段提供进一步的专业知识和数据。我们预测，考虑到生态系统的物理和时间限制，生态位选择和生态漂变将是决定这些重要但受到威胁的生态系统的长期成功、恢复力和稳定性的最重要因素。我们的工作将是第一个直接评估在这个全球重要的生态系统中驱动早期社区聚集的机制。

Understanding how species re-colonise an area they have previously been lost from, to assemble new ecological communities after conservation methods are used to restore these habitats, is vital to ensure our limited resources are used as effectively as possible, maximising the benefits we get from natural ecosystems. For example, seagrass meadows provide coastal stabilisation, biodiversity enhancement, nutrient cycling, and are a global source of blue carbon capture, yet have been substantially lost from around the UK coast due to disease, pollution, and coastal development. We are pioneering UK and global efforts to successfully restore resilient seagrass meadows to ensure that future generations will benefit from the crucial ecosystem services they provide.Previous work studying ecological community assembly has identified four main processes that affect the final outcome: (i) how well each species' biology fits with the local habitat (niche selection); (ii) how easily individuals can move from one place to another (dispersal); (iii) how important random events are in promoting or reducing success (ecological drift); and (iv) how quickly variation in species genones can accumulate in a way that benefits them (genetic diversification). This work has generally been carried out using simplified laboratory experiments with micro-organisms like bacteria, or with mathematical equations and computers, to predict how patterns of re-colonisation develop over time. Other approaches have relied on inferring the historical mechanisms involved with community assembly by using current snapshots of the community, which can be strongly influenced by factors beyond our control. While these approaches are important first steps in building our understanding of the importance of different ecological assembly processes, we lack data and evidence from more complex, natural ecosystems at the start of their re-assembly journey to properly test the real-world application of advances in theory This increased natural complexity may introduce surprising or unexpected new features that previous work was unable to account for or predict. Our project will combine insights from previous laboratory- and mathematical-based approaches, with field data of the micro-organisms that live on the seagrass roots and leaves, from recently restored UK seagrass meadows (1 to 5 years old). We will develop and test novel predictions about the relative importance of the four assembly processes defined above, during the early phases of seagrass restoration. Importantly, we will also build a global network of researchers to provide further expertise and data from later stages of seagrass restoration. We predict that niche selection and ecological drift will be most important for determining the longer-term success, resilience and stability of these vital but threatened ecosystems, given the physical and temporal limitations of this system. Our work will be the first to directly assess the mechanisms that drive early community assembly in this globally important ecosystem.