LTER: Environmental drivers and ecological consequences of kelp forest dynamics (SBV IV)

沿海海洋生态系统提供的货物和服务极大地造福于社会，但由于沿海开发、污染、捕鱼和气候变化的威胁日益增加，其可持续性不确定。对这些重要的生态系统进行长期的生态研究，对于了解这些威胁的后果以及如何减轻这些威胁是必要的。关注创造栖息地并影响周围环境条件的关键“基础物种”，可以提高我们对整个生态系统的理解。圣巴巴拉沿海长期生态研究计划（SBC LTER）通过其对海带森林生态系统的关注，展示了长期研究对了解基础物种的价值。巨型海藻Macrocystis pyrifera是世界上最大的海藻和生长最快的物种之一，它创造了极其多产的海洋森林，拥有数百种其他物种，在全球沿海温带地区非常有价值。巨藻森林是动态的，其特点是经常受到风暴、放牧和其他自然和人为现象的干扰，使巨藻消失，然后迅速再生和恢复。这使得海带森林成为研究环境变化和人类活动对无数生态过程的影响的理想选择，这些生态过程需要几个世纪才能在其他生态系统中解决，包括陆地上的森林。了解适用于所有生态系统的这种过程的性质是SBC LTER研究的一个关键要素。通过将研究与针对K-12教育，教师专业发展，本科生和研究生培训以及利益相关者参与的各种教育和推广计划相结合，增强了该项目的更广泛影响。SBC LTER的研究基本上建立在其先前的结果之上：（1）推进对自然干扰，气候变化和人类行为（即，渔业和沿海开发）改变海带森林生态系统的生态结构和功能，以及（2）确定这些过程的机制。海带森林通过生物和非生物物质的交换相互连接，并与周围的沿海海洋和相邻的潮间带海滩相连。因此，要预测海带森林对环境变化的反应的原因和后果，就需要对海底和海带森林内外的水柱中发生的各种物理、化学和生物过程进行综合研究，以充分掌握物质交换的动态。这些研究的整合是通过在不断变化的气候和海洋学的动态环境中进行空间组织的研究来完成的，从当地海带森林群落的规模以及其中发生的生态相互作用和生态系统过程到相互作用的海带森林和邻近的沃茨和海滩的更大景观。通过统计、分析和数字模型，综合不同生物组织水平和不同时空尺度的项目研究结果，这些模型联合收割机长期生态和环境时间序列数据与从短期、该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并被认为值得通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

The goods and services provided by coastal marine ecosystems greatly benefit society, but their sustainability is uncertain due to increasing threats from coastal development, pollution, fishing, and changing climate. Long-term ecological studies of these important ecosystems are necessary for understanding the consequences of such threats and how to mitigate them. Focusing on key "foundation species" that create habitat and affect environmental conditions around them improves our understanding of the ecosystem as a whole. The Santa Barbara Coastal Long Term Ecological Research program (SBC LTER) demonstrates the value of long-term studies for understanding foundation species through its focus on kelp forest ecosystems. The giant kelp Macrocystis pyrifera, the largest seaweed and one of the fastest growing species in the world, creates extremely productive ocean forests that harbor hundreds of other species and are highly valued in coastal temperate regions worldwide. Giant kelp forests are dynamic, characterized by frequent disturbance from storms, grazing, and other natural and human-induced phenomena that remove kelp, followed by rapid regeneration and recovery. This makes kelp forests ideal for investigating the effects of environmental change and human actions on a myriad of ecological processes that require centuries to address in other ecosystems, including forests on land. Understanding the nature of such processes that apply to all ecosystems is a key element of SBC LTER research. Broader impacts of the project are enhanced by integrating the research with a diverse array of education and outreach programs that target K-12 education, teacher professional development, undergraduate and graduate student training, and stakeholder engagement.SBC LTER's research builds substantially upon its prior results to: (1) advance a predictive understanding of how natural disturbance, climate variation and human actions (i.e., fishing and coastal development) alter the ecological structure and function of kelp forest ecosystems, and (2) identify the mechanisms that underlie these processes. Kelp forests are connected to one another and to the surrounding coastal ocean and adjacent intertidal beaches via the exchange of living and non-living materials. Thus predicting the causes and consequences of kelp forest responses to environmental change requires integrated studies of a wide range of physical, chemical and biological processes occurring on the seafloor and in the water column within and outside of the kelp forest to fully capture the dynamics of material exchange. Integration of these studies is accomplished by research that is organized spatially in a dynamic setting of changing climate and oceanography from the scale of a local kelp forest community and the ecological interactions and ecosystem processes occurring within it to a much larger landscape of interacting kelp forests and adjacent waters and beaches. Synthesis of the project's findings across different levels of biological organization and different spatial and temporal scales is achieved through statistical, analytical and numerical models that combine long-term ecological and environmental time-series data with relationships, mechanisms and processes obtained from shorter-term, but more intensive studies.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.