OCE-PRF Ecological consequences of seawater chemistry modification by ecosystem engineers

该奖项全部或部分由2021年美国救援计划法案（公法117-2）资助。该项目将确定生态系统工程师如何通过改变当地化学来塑造社区。生态系统工程师通常通过个体的密集聚集来改变栖息地的物理特性（例如贻贝床，海带树冠等）。与未经改造的栖息地相比，可以拥有广泛的生物多样性。这些栖息地可以通过各种机制控制居民社区，包括改变当地的化学物质。通过实验室和实地实验，该项目将比较不同生境形成物种组合中改变的化学环境如何塑造长期和短期社区对化学压力的恢复力。这项研究的结果将直接告知水产养殖，保护和恢复，揭示机制，以准备社区在未来更紧张的海洋。该项目还将通过与现有的STEM招聘计划合作，并分配资金来补偿参与者，从而扩大通常在生态学中代表性不足的群体对科学的参与。与当地贝类水产养殖和社区教育计划合作，这一项目还将作为教育和宣传材料的基础，用于加强人们与环境的联系，同时就与环境管理有关的主题和农业产业的科学研究对他们进行教育，社区合作。生物栖息地内海水化学的小规模改变可以由呼吸，光合作用，钙化、溶解及其组合（例如大型藻类冠层、珊瑚藻类冠层和贻贝床）。这些过程中的每一个都对海水碳酸盐系统产生不同的后果，例如，它们可以减少或增加二氧化碳浓度（分别是光合作用和呼吸作用），或者减少或增加碱度（分别是钙化和溶解）。这些过程还发生在更大规模的过程，如海洋酸化或河流排放进一步扰动碳酸盐化学的背景下。本项目将研究不同生境形成生态系统工程师改善其所创造的生境内不同化学胁迫的能力以及改善发生的时间尺度。短期改善潜力将通过确定在急性化学胁迫条件下移动的或定居类群的生境偏好是否不同来评估。通过测量不同类型的生物栖息地内的居民的增长率，该项目将揭示在居民生物的一生中的改善潜力。最后，这些栖息地驱动居民适应化学胁迫的能力将通过跟踪来自不同类型的栖息地的本地适应蛤蜊菌株在面对化学胁迫事件时的表现来确定。总的来说，这个项目，旨在揭示化学背景下，各种类型的化学修饰的基础物种可以促进或抑制相关的无脊椎动物群落的成员在几个时间尺度这个奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并已被认为是值得支持的评估使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准。

This award is funded in whole or in part under the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (Public Law 117-2).This project will determine how ecosystem engineers shape communities by altering local chemistry. Ecosystem engineers modify the physical properties of a habitat often via the dense aggregation of individuals (e.g. mussel beds, kelp canopies, etc.)and can harbor extensive biodiversity compared to unmodified habitats. Such habitats can control resident communities through a variety of mechanisms including altering local chemistry. Through laboratory and field experiments, this project will compare how the altered chemical environments within diverse assemblages of habitat-forming species can shape long-and short-term community resilience to chemical stress. Results of this study will directly inform aquaculture, conservation, and restoration by revealing mechanisms available to prepare communities for more stressful oceans in the future. This project will additionally broaden participation in science by groups typically underrepresented in ecology by partnering with existing STEM recruitment programs and allocating funds to compensate participants. In collaboration with local shellfish aquaculture and community education programs, this project will also serve as the basis for education and outreach materials that are used to increase peoples’ connection to the environment while educating them on topics related to environmental stewardship and scientific research in an academia-industry-community collaboration.Small scale alterations of seawater chemistry within biogenic habitats can be dominated by biological processes like respiration, photosynthesis, calcification, dissolution, and their combinations (e.g. macroalgal canopies vs coralline algal canopies vs mussel beds). Each of these processes has different consequences for the seawater carbonate system in that they can, for example, either decrease or increase carbon dioxide concentrations (photosynthesis and respiration, respectively) or either decrease or increase alkalinity (calcification and dissolution, respectively). These processes additionally occur against a backdrop of further perturbations to carbonate chemistry by larger scale processes like ocean acidification or riverine discharge. This project will examine the ability of different habitat-forming ecosystem engineers to ameliorate diverse chemical stresses within the habitat they create and the time scales over which that amelioration occurs.Short-term amelioration potential will be assessed by determining whether habitat preference of mobile or settling taxa differs under acute chemical stress conditions. By measuring growth rates of residents within diverse types of biogenic habitat this project will reveal amelioration potential during a resident organism’s lifetime. Lastly, the ability of these habitats to drive resident adaption to chemical stress will be determined by tracking how strains of a locally adapted clam originating from different types of habitats perform in the face of chemical stress events. Overall, this project, aims to reveal the chemical contexts under which various types of chemical modification by foundation species can either facilitate or inhibit the members of associated invertebrate communities across several time scalesThis 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.