RUI-LTREB Long-term coral reef community dynamics in St. John, USVI: 1987-2019

在人类对自然资源的压力日益增加的时代，迫切需要了解主要生态系统将如何作出反应，资源管理可以在多大程度上减轻这些反应的影响，以及这些生态系统未来的可能状态。社区结构的时间序列分析为满足这些需求提供了一个重要的工具，并有望深刻理解社区的变化。这项研究的重点是珊瑚礁生态系统；现有的对美属维尔京群岛圣约翰珊瑚礁珊瑚群落结构的时序分析将扩大到27年的连续数据，每年递增。核心时间序列数据的扩展将用于解决以下五个问题：(1)小空间尺度（1-2公里）的生态在多大程度上代表区域尺度（10公里）的事件？(2)珊瑚覆盖减少对珊瑚宿主及其共生藻类遗传种群结构的影响是什么？(3)定居前和定居后的事件在决定小珊瑚种群动态方面的作用是什么？(4)除了温度外，物理强迫因子在推动幼珊瑚种群动态方面扮演什么角色？(5)其他非珊瑚无脊椎动物种群如何应对珊瑚覆盖的十年尺度下降？与过去二十年中使用的方法相同的生态方法将辅以分子遗传学工具，以了解珊瑚覆盖面积下降对现存珊瑚遗传多样性的影响程度。将实施一项信息管理计划，为科学界提供对整个数据集的广泛访问。这项研究的重要性在于，在一个独特的生态环境中，描述珊瑚礁的数据的寿命非常长，而且这些数据具有巨大的潜力，可以理解综合群落变化的模式（即，涉及珊瑚、其他无脊椎动物和遗传多样性），以及驱动它们的过程。重要的是，由于该项目与第六国家公园内的资源管理紧密结合，以及通过美国国家科学基金会Moorea珊瑚礁LTER研究美国珊瑚礁的更大努力，因此它具有强大的潜力，具有比研究地点更远的科学和管理意义。将发展外联活动，以包括珊瑚礁科学的研究生和本科生培训机会，并将设计一个强有力的K-12教育组成部分，为加利福尼亚和圣约翰的儿童提供教育和研究机会。

In an era of growing human pressures on natural resources, there is a critical need to understand how major ecosystems will respond, the extent to which resource management can lessen the implications of these responses, and the likely state of these ecosystems in the future. Time-series analyses of community structure provide a vital tool in meeting these needs and promise a profound understanding of community change. This study focuses on coral reef ecosystems; an existing time-series analysis of the coral community structure on the reefs of St. John, US Virgin Islands, will be expanded to 27 years of continuous data in annual increments. Expansion of the core time-series data will be used to address five questions: (1) To what extent is the ecology at a small spatial scale (1-2 km) representative of regional scale events (10's of km)? (2) What are the effects of declining coral cover in modifying the genetic population structure of the coral host and its algal symbionts? (3) What are the roles of pre- versus post-settlement events in determining the population dynamics of small corals? (4) What role do physical forcing agents (other than temperature) play in driving the population dynamics of juvenile corals? and (5) How are populations of other, non-coral invertebrates responding to decadal-scale declines in coral cover? Ecological methods identical to those used over the last two decades will be supplemented by molecular genetic tools to understand the extent to which declining coral cover is affecting the genetic diversity of the corals remaining. An information management program will be implemented to create broad access by the scientific community to the entire data set. The importance of this study lies in the extreme longevity of the data describing coral reefs in a unique ecological context, and the immense potential that these data possess for understanding both the patterns of comprehensive community change (i.e., involving corals, other invertebrates, and genetic diversity), and the processes driving them. Importantly, as this project is closely integrated with resource management within the VI National Park, as well as larger efforts to study coral reefs in the US through the NSF Moorea Coral Reef LTER, it has a strong potential to have scientific and management implications that extend further than the location of the study. Outreach activities will be developed to embrace graduate and undergraduate training opportunities in coral reef science, and a strong K-12 educational component will be designed to provide educational and research opportunities for children in California and St. John.