Convergence: RAISE: Engineering Coral Reef Recovery

据估计，珊瑚礁的全球年价值为1万亿美元，对粮食安全、海岸线保护、生物多样性、旅游业和就业至关重要。然而，在过去的50年里，由于各种相互作用的威胁，包括热应激、过度捕捞、藻类过度生长、污染、疾病、径流、海岸建设、疏浚、水化学变化和栖息地丧失，珊瑚在全球范围内遭受了广泛的死亡。由于珊瑚通常生长非常缓慢，它们目前的繁殖、生存和生长速度无法跟上正在发生的损失。本项目将通过融合研究，针对珊瑚礁修复的复杂和紧迫挑战。具体而言，该项目将汇集工程（材料和机械）和生物学（微生物学、珊瑚礁科学和地球生物学）的专业知识、方法和研究人员，通过材料工程进行珊瑚恢复，在珊瑚繁殖和幼崽生存方面取得革命性进展。这个项目可能会对珊瑚礁的恢复和恢复科学产生影响，也会对依赖这些生态系统来支持旅游业和渔业的经济和社区产生影响。这项研究的结果可能会对珊瑚礁科学以外的领域产生广泛的影响，包括水产养殖、表面污染、海洋工程、药物发现、生物材料和微生物生物膜研究。该项目将支持培养3名研究生和1名博士后研究员。为了激励下一代的科学家和工程师，各种各样的公共宣传活动将集中在珊瑚礁科学，海洋保护和教育，将工程和生物学结合起来，为海洋健康创造强大的工具。这项研究解决了一个阻碍珊瑚礁恢复的根本问题：幼鱼的招募和生存。目前，珊瑚普遍存在繁殖失败的问题，超过98%的移植珊瑚在两年内死亡。改变珊瑚种群动态可以将珊瑚礁系统转向有益的生物（珊瑚、珊瑚藻、食草动物），远离有害的竞争对手（病原体、大型藻类、草皮藻类、蓝藻）。该项目将采用大规模、迭代、基于收敛的方法来设计珊瑚繁殖的新型基质。该团队将设计、制造和测试各种各样的基质，使用新的材料来修复珊瑚。在将基质部署到珊瑚礁后，将通过测量表面微生物群落组成来评估每种基质的性能；珊瑚幼虫的探索、吸引及附着率；珊瑚幼虫沉降率；生态群落组成；以及珊瑚幼体的招募、生长和生存。这些数据将通过宏基因组序列分析、游泳珊瑚幼虫实验、定制流体系统、生态群落评估、珊瑚新生的骨骼密度和微生物群落分析来测量。最大限度地提高积极生物学结果的底物特性将被纳入具有进一步毫米级特征多样性的第二代底物。性能最好的基材特性将被纳入3D基材中，用于珊瑚修复，并对传统上用于珊瑚繁殖的材料进行测试。汇聚工作坊将促进珊瑚生物学和工程学的整合，提供3D建模，材料制造和珊瑚繁殖的实践经验。结果将通过网站、社交媒体、会议、期刊文章和外联广泛传播。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

With an estimated annual global value of $1 trillion, coral reefs are critical to food security, shoreline protection, biodiversity, tourism, and jobs. Yet corals have suffered widespread global death in the last 50 years due to diverse and interacting threats including heat stress, overfishing, algal overgrowth, pollution, disease, runoff, coastal construction, dredging, changing water chemistry, and habitat loss. Because corals generally grow very slowly, their current reproduction, survival, and growth rates cannot keep pace with the ongoing losses. This project will target the complex and compelling challenge of coral reef restoration through Convergence Research. Specifically, the project will bring together expertise, methods, and researchers from engineering (materials and mechanical) and biology (microbiology, coral reef science, and geobiology) to make transformative advances in coral reproduction and juvenile survival through materials engineering for coral restoration. This program may have impact on coral reef restoration and restoration science, and also on the economies and communities that depend on these ecosystems to support tourism and fisheries. The outcomes of this research may have broad impact in fields outside of coral reef science, including aquaculture, surface fouling, ocean engineering, drug discovery, biomaterials, and microbial biofilm research. The project will support the training of three graduate students and one post-doctoral researcher. To inspire the next generation of scientists and engineers, diverse public outreach activities will focus on coral reef science, marine conservation, and education about combining engineering and biology to create powerful tools for ocean health. This research tackles a fundamental problem blocking coral reef recovery: juvenile recruitment and survival. Currently, corals suffer from widespread recruitment failure and over 98% of coral settlers outplanted for restoration die within two years. Altering coral population dynamics can shift reef systems back toward desirable organisms (corals, coralline algae, herbivores) and away from harmful competitors (pathogens, macroalgae, turf algae, cyanobacteria). The project will use a large-scale, iterative, convergence-based approach to engineer novel substrates for coral propagation. The team will design, fabricate, and test a diverse array of substrates using materials novel to coral restoration. After substrates are deployed to the reef, the performance of each will be assessed by measuring surface microbial community composition; coral larval exploration, attraction, and attachment rates; coral larval settlement rates; ecological community composition; and coral juvenile recruitment, growth, and survival. These data will be measured using metagenomic sequence analysis, experiments with swimming coral larvae, custom-built fluidics systems, ecological community assessments, and skeletal density and microbial community analyses of coral recruits. Substrate characteristics that maximize positive biological outcomes will be incorporated into second-generation substrates with further diversity of millimeter-scale features. The top-performing substrate characteristics will be incorporated into 3D substrates for coral restoration and tested against materials traditionally used in coral propagation. Convergence Workshops will foster the integration of coral biology and engineering, providing hands-on experience in 3D modeling, materials fabrication, and coral propagation. Results will be disseminated broadly through a website, social media, conferences, journal articles, and outreach.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.