Flexible fouling control in marine organisms: Are antifouling defenses synchronized with or fine-tuned to colonization pressure?

在海洋系统中，生物体在其他生物体上生长是至关重要的。宿主外表面的定殖影响到其与生物和非生物环境的所有相互作用，并已表明会塑造整个海洋群落。许多海洋大型生物已经进化出生物防御系统来控制体表的附生。与类似的生物相互作用，如捕食者-猎物或宿主-寄生虫相比，迄今为止还不知道生物防御是否或如何受到调节。防御系统的生产和部署由需求（污垢压力）或资源可用性（能源，食物）驱动，这似乎具有选择性优势。这种生态调整的污垢防御是未探索到目前为止，将构成本project.We的主题将描述一般的污垢压力的季节性波动和发生和单一的污垢类群的污垢率。我们将进一步研究如何在一个basibiont的表面一般的“化学景观”，特别是在选定的宿主物种季节性变化的组件的防御系统。然后，我们将分析污垢压力和防御部署之间是否存在同步。最后，我们将调查是否防御引起的污垢压力和/或资源的可用性控制。这些发现将有助于填补我们对海洋生态学核心特征的理解中的一个重要空白。

Epibiosis – the growth of organisms on other organisms – is paramount in marine systems. The colonization of a host’s outer surface affects all its interactions with the biotic and abiotic environment and has been shown to shape entire marine communities. Many marine macro-organisms have evolved antifouling defense systems to control epibiosis at their body surface. In contrast to similar biotic interactions such as predator-prey or host-parasite to date nothing is known about whether or how antifouling defense is regulated. It seems of selective advantage that the production and deployment of defenses be driven by demand (fouling pressure) or by resource availability (energy, food) as found for other defenses. Such an ecological tuning of antifouling defenses is unexplored so far and will constitute the topic of the present project.We will describe the seasonal fluctuations of fouling pressure in general and the occurrence and fouling rates of single fouler taxa. We will further investigate how the “chemical landscape” at a basibiont’s surface in general and the components of the antifouling defense systems in particular vary seasonally in selected host species. We will then analyse whether synchronization between fouling pressure and defense deployment exists. Finally we will investigate whether defenses are induced by fouling pressure and/or controlled by the availability of resources. The findings will help to fill an essential gap in our understanding of a central feature in marine ecology.