NSFGEO-NERC: Linking species traits to marine ecosystem functioning

NSFGEO-NERC：将物种特征与海洋生态系统功能联系起来

• 批准号: NE/X016641/1
• 负责人: John Griffin
• 金额: $ 31.08万
• 依托单位: Swansea University
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Research Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2023 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=NE%2FX016641%2F1
• 关键词: NSFGEO; NERC; Linking; species; traits

Humans are modifying the diversity of life on Earth, changing the number and composition of species in ecosystems. It is essential to understand how these changes will affect how natural systems function. This project evaluates a promising method for predicting the impacts of biodiversity change by linking species' physical characteristics - their shapes and forms - to the key roles that they play in communities and ecosystems. These links between traits and emergent roles are poorly described, especially in coastal marine environments. This project involves screening the traits of seaweed species along gradients in environmental conditions on rocky shorelines - tide height, exposure to heavy surf, and latitude - along the U.S. West Coast and (via a partnership with the Natural Environment Research Council in the United Kingdom) the coast of Europe. This project includes experiments and outreach in regions with substantial exposure to the public, and the investigators will work with community, university, and museum outreach personnel to communicate this research to broader audiences. The project includes mechanisms for curriculum development and outreach and trains undergraduate and graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in marine science. The project also supports a visual arts exhibit for public display that illustrates the loss of seaweed species. The investigators are using a suite of innovative approaches to understand the links between functional traits and emergent functional attributes of seaweeds, providing an unprecedented dataset linking seaweed morphology, physiology, and ecology: (i) characterizing the functional structure of seaweed communities and how that structure changes across environmental gradients, (ii) evaluating how that suite of easily measured traits is related to physiological and ecological processes, (iii) measuring species and traits at multiple sites along U.S. and European coastlines spanning gradients in latitude, wave exposure, and tidal elevation, and (iv) evaluating changes in functional redundancy along these gradients to quantify vulnerability of community interactions and ecosystem functioning to species loss These methods and approaches facilitate exploration of relationships between algal form and function and provide insights into the functional consequences of changes in seaweed diversity, with the potential to transform understanding of marine biodiversity across levels of biological organization. These advances in linking seaweeds' functional traits, functional groups, and roles in community- and ecosystem-level processes enhance prediction of the impacts of changing biodiversity - especially along environmental gradients and species ranges - and serve as a template for a mechanistic understanding of the roles of species in communities and ecosystems.

人类正在改变地球上生命的多样性，改变生态系统中物种的数量和组成。了解这些变化将如何影响自然系统的功能至关重要。该项目评估了一种有前途的方法，通过将物种的物理特征-它们的形状和形式-与它们在社区和生态系统中发挥的关键作用联系起来，预测生物多样性变化的影响。这些性状和新兴角色之间的联系描述得很差，特别是在沿海海洋环境中。该项目涉及筛选海藻物种的特点沿着梯度的环境条件的岩石海岸线-潮汐高度，暴露于巨浪，纬度-沿着美国西海岸和（通过与自然环境研究理事会在英国）欧洲海岸。该项目包括在大量接触公众的地区进行实验和推广，研究人员将与社区，大学和博物馆推广人员合作，将这项研究传达给更广泛的受众。该项目包括课程编制和外联机制，并对本科生、研究生和博士后研究人员进行海洋科学培训。该项目还支持一个视觉艺术展览，向公众展示海藻物种的损失。研究人员正在使用一套创新的方法来了解海藻的功能特性和紧急功能属性之间的联系，提供了一个前所未有的数据集，将海藻形态学，生理学和生态学联系起来：（i）确定海藻群落的功能结构特点以及这种结构如何在环境梯度中变化，（ii）评估该套容易测量的性状如何与生理和生态过程相关，（iii）测量跨越纬度梯度、波浪暴露、和潮汐高度，以及（iv）评估功能冗余沿着这些梯度的变化，以量化群落相互作用和生态系统功能对物种损失的脆弱性。这些方法和途径有助于探索藻类形式和功能之间的关系，并提供对海藻多样性变化的功能后果的见解，有可能改变对不同生物组织层次的海洋生物多样性的理解。在海藻的功能特性、功能群和在群落和生态系统一级过程中的作用之间的联系方面取得的这些进展，加强了对生物多样性变化的影响的预测-特别是沿着环境梯度和物种范围-并作为一个模板，从机制上理解物种在群落和生态系统中的作用。

项目成果

The untapped potential of categorical traits in seaweed functional diversity research

海藻功能多样性研究中类别性状的未开发潜力

• DOI: 10.1111/1365-2745.14178
• 发表时间: 2023
• 期刊: Journal of Ecology
• 影响因子: 5.5
• 作者: Griffin, John N.;Mauffrey, Alizée R.;Bracken, Matthew E.
• 通讯作者: Bracken, Matthew E.