CAREER: Museum-based Approaches to Ecology and Evolution of Aquatic Systems: An Integrated Research and Educational Program

摘要本项目将在新墨西哥大学西南生物学博物馆（MSB）建立一个研究、教育和培训项目。参与的研究生和本科生将获得自然历史收藏如何获取，记录和数据库标本的基本知识，以提供我们丰富的自然遗产的历史记录。然后，学生们将利用这些知识和鱼类部门收藏的博物馆标本，跨越65年的历史，进行两个研究目标，旨在确定濒危的里约热内卢Grande水生生态系统中鱼类动物群生态变化的潜在原因。首先，将使用稳定同位素方法来比较现在和博物馆保存的鱼类标本，以确定鱼类群落在过去（在人口增长和大规模调水之前）的功能是否与现在不同。本研究旨在确定可能改变里约热内卢Grande鱼类群落动态的全生态系统事件。其次，将利用收集的数据评估某些鱼类的丰度模式，并与目前的遗传多样性估计进行比较，以确定丰度的减少是否以阻碍物种恢复的方式改变了遗传多样性。这两项研究都集中在保护和恢复里约热内卢Grande的重要问题上。自然历史收藏对于记录和理解地球上生物多样性的变化变得越来越重要，因为它们保存了生物多样性的历史记录。此外，自然历史收藏已被用于解决人类健康方面的重要问题，例如汉坦病毒在西南沙漠的起源和出现。然而，在本科和研究生的训练与自然史收藏可以为解决重要问题提供的巨大资源之间存在着根本的差距。该项目的目标是通过让研究生和本科生熟悉自然历史博物馆中可用的各种信息来缩小这一差距，并向他们展示如何使用多学科研究方法将这些信息用于解决关键的环境问题。其预期结果是培养能够以新颖的方式利用自然历史博物馆提供的大量资源来解决21世纪我们面临的环境问题的科学家。

AbstractThis project will create a research, education, and training program in the Museum of Southwestern Biology (MSB) at the University of New Mexico. Participating graduate and undergraduate students will gain a fundamental understanding of how natural history collections acquire, document, and database specimens, to provide an historical record of our rich natural heritage. Students will then use this knowledge and a collection of museum specimens held in the Division of Fishes that spans a 65-year history in two research objectives aimed at identifying the underlying causes of ecological change in the fish fauna of the imperiled Rio Grande aquatic ecosystem. First, stable isotope methodology will be used to compare present-day and museum-preserved fish specimens, to determine whether the fish community functioned differently in the past (prior to human population growth and large-scale water diversion) than at present. This research is designed to identify ecosystem-wide events that may have altered fish community dynamics in the Rio Grande. Second, abundance patterns of certain fish species will be evaluated using the collection and compared to current estimates of genetic diversity to ascertain whether reduced abundance has changed genetic diversity in ways that hamper species recovery. Both research efforts are focused on important issues for conservation and restoration of the Rio Grande.Natural history collections are becoming increasingly important for documenting and understanding the changes in biodiversity on the planet because they preserve an historical record of organismal diversity. Moreover, natural history collections have been used to address important issues in human health such as the origins and emergence of Hantavirus in the desert southwest. There exists, however, a fundamental gap between undergraduate and graduate training and the enormous resources that natural history collections can offer for solving important problems. The goal of this project is to close that gap by familiarizing graduate and undergraduate students with the kinds of information available in natural history museums, and to show them how this information can be brought to bear on critical environmental problems using a multidisciplinary research approach. The intended result is to produce scientists that can capitalize on the vast resources offered by natural history museums in novel ways to solve environmental problems facing us in the 21st century.