A Seawater System for Enhancing Nature Coast Biological Station's Research and Education Programs

该项目将建立最先进的中生态系统设施，以研究佛罗里达自然海岸沿着的海岸系统。 自然海岸横跨墨西哥湾佛罗里达的大弯（984，000英亩），是北美最不发达的海岸线之一，拥有广阔的海草草地，宝贵的娱乐和商业渔业以及健康的海洋哺乳动物，水鸟和海龟。 自然海岸生物站（NCBS）是由佛罗里达大学于2017年创建的一个新的现代化实验室和教育中心。这个新实验室是美国墨西哥湾沿岸416公里范围内唯一的此类实验室。 该项目将在NCBS安装一个模块化海水输送和过滤系统，该系统将服务于湿实验室和公共教育/水族馆区域。该系统将允许教师和学生进行气候变化的研究和教育，在一个地区，温度的微小变化正在导致从温带到热带物种组成（盐沼到红树林，热带鱼食草动物（鹦嘴鱼）和捕食者（snook）的增加）的明显转变，以及高度依赖健康沿海栖息地的人口。该海水系统的灵活设计将使研究人员能够进行实验，并调整海水流量，盐度和温度，以提高科学水平并开展具有国家意义的工作。该系统还将通过提供一个中央大型水族馆展示、一个触摸式水箱和一个海平面上升模拟器来教育公众有关生态和气候变化的知识，从而加强国家生态系统委员会推进教育和公众宣传的目标。鉴于其位于海滨和佛罗里达锡达基历史街区内的位置，湿实验室和水族馆/公共教育区将为教育公众、本科生/研究生和来访的K-12学生提供一个有价值的新场所，介绍在该站进行的研究以及气候变化对沿海生态系统和社区的影响。自然海岸生物站（NCBS，https://ncbs.ifas.ufl.edu）是佛罗里达大学在佛罗里达锡达基历史街区创建的一个新的现代化实验室和教育设施。该项目将安装一个模块化的海水输送和过滤系统，将服务于湿实验室和公共教育/水族馆区。这一系统将增强国家生物多样性委员会促进跨学科生态研究的能力，包括研究植物和动物对气温变暖、季节性变化、淡水排放和海洋酸化的反应。该系统将允许教师和学生评估压力源的影响，如海洋酸化和因气候变化（红红树林，普通snook）而扩大植物和鱼类对该地区的入侵，并将允许研究人员养殖鱼类和贝类进行基本的生物和生态评估。将海水系统添加到NCBS将促进通过NSF和其他机构资助的几个正在进行的项目，并提供对支持该地区气候变化影响的研究和推广至关重要的基础设施。海水系统将通过创建一个适应性强的湿实验室来大大增强这些跨学科和多机构的活动，该实验室可以根据渔业生物学家，生态学家，流行病学家和生理学家等的需求量身定制。该系统还将为本科生和研究生提供一个场所，让他们对气候变化对自然海岸的社会经济和生态特征的影响进行新的发现。此外，委员会认为，由这种新的海水输送和过滤系统支持的湿实验室和水族馆阵列准备为教育公众和参观K提供一个有价值的新场所，该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This project will build state of the art mesocosm facilities to study coastal systems along the nature coast of Florida. The Nature Coast spans the Big Bend of Florida on the Gulf of Mexico (984,000 acres) and contains one of North America's least developed coastlines, with extensive seagrass meadows, valuable recreational and commercial fisheries and healthy populations of marine mammals, waterbirds, and sea turtles. The Nature Coast Biological Station (NCBS) is a new modern laboratory and education center created by the University of Florida in 2017. This new laboratory is the only one of its kind for 416 kilometers of the U.S. Gulf Coast. This project will install a modular seawater delivery and filtration system at NCBS that will serve the wet lab and public education/aquarium area. This system will allow faculty and students to conduct climate change research and education, in a region where small changes in temperature are causing large, obvious shift from temperate to tropical species composition (salt marsh to mangroves, increases in tropical fish grazers (parrotfish) and predators (snook) and with a human population that is highly dependent on healthy coastal habitats. The flexible design of this seawater system will allow researchers to conduct experiments and tailor the seawater flow, salinity and temperature to improve science and conduct work of national significance. This system will also enhance the NCBS' aims of advancing education and public outreach by serving one central, large aquaria display, a touch tank, and a sea level rise simulator to educate the public about ecology and climate change. Given its location on the waterfront and within the Historic District of Cedar Key, Florida, the wet lab and aquarium/public education area will provide a valuable new venue for educating the public, undergraduate/graduate students, and visiting K-12 students about the research being conducted at the station and about the effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems and communities.The Nature Coast Biological Station (NCBS, https://ncbs.ifas.ufl.edu) is a new modern laboratory and education facility created by the University of Florida in the Historic District of Cedar Key, Florida. This project will install a modular seawater delivery and filtration system that will serve the wet lab and public education/aquarium area. This system will augment the NCBS' ability to facilitate interdisciplinary ecological research, including studies on the response of plants and animals to warming temperatures, changing seasonality, freshwater discharge, and ocean acidification. This system will allow faculty and students to evaluate impacts of stressors such as ocean acidification and invasion of the region by expanding plants and fishes due to climate change (red mangrove, common snook), and will allow researchers to culture fish and shellfish for basic biological and ecological assessments. The addition of the seawater system to the NCBS will facilitate several on-going projects funded through NSF and other agencies as well as provide infrastructure critical to supporting research and outreach on the effects of climate change in the region. The seawater system will substantially augment these interdisciplinary and multi-institutional activities by creating an adaptable wet lab that can be tailored to meet the needs of fisheries biologists, ecologists, epidemiologists and physiologists, among others. This system will also provide a venue for undergraduates and graduate students to make new discoveries about the effect of climate change on socio-economic and ecological features of the Nature Coast. Furthermore, the wet lab and aquaria array supported by this new seawater delivery and filtration system are poised to provide a valuable new venue for educating the public and visiting K-12 students about the research being conducted at the station and about the effects of climate change on coastal ecosystems and communities.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.