CAREER: Integrating Ecological Principles of Sponge-Dominated Coral Reefs in the Education Curricula

珊瑚礁的严重死亡和恢复到以前珊瑚礁状态的可能性很低，需要了解“新珊瑚礁”群落如何维持生物多样性。最近的研究表明，珊瑚礁从以珊瑚为主的复杂群落向以大型藻类为主的群落转变是不稳定的，可能会加强以海绵为主的珊瑚礁，这种情况在加勒比海变得越来越常见。海绵占主导地位的生物礁是如何发挥作用并改变生态系统结构的？它们如何继续对热应激做出反应？该项目旨在通过评估海绵为主的珊瑚礁在热异常下的持久性以及它们维持珊瑚礁生物多样性或帮助当地灭绝的潜力来回答这些问题。海绵占主导地位的珊瑚礁的生态原理被纳入教育课程，以促进未来科学家和/或公民科学家在地方、区域和全球各级的成长。开发了英文和西班牙文的珊瑚礁生态学原理高中课程，供教师下载并在课堂上使用。外展部分包括为学生和教职员工举办的公开研讨会，讨论竞争神话，旨在改善女性对学术界、研究和政策领域高级别工作的看法。此外，它还为寄养家庭的青少年提供了探索海洋科学职业道路的机会。物种间的相互作用改变了每个物种适应变化的方式，并构成了构建生态群落的基本力量之一。然而，大多数关于珊瑚礁动力学的理论和实验都不能提供足够的信息来预测珊瑚礁底栖动物的相互作用、演替和演化。该项目评价和预测目前和未来加勒比海和佛罗里达珊瑚礁(以海绵为主)正在发生的变化，重点关注底栖动物之间的相互作用，例如：通过评估在热异常影响下珊瑚礁底栖动物相互作用的现状和未来趋势来争夺空间；通过弄清底栖物种相互作用和相关共生生物在海绵为主的珊瑚礁中如何发挥作用，促进共生；通过区分海绵群落在何种程度上充当栖息地形成动物以及它们如何维持珊瑚礁的生物多样性，促进以这些生态相互作用为原则的教育，以这些生态互动为原则，以包容性建构主义教学方法，开展从高中到博士后的教学、辅导和外联活动。该项目评估了加勒比海和佛罗里达州从南加勒比海的热带纬度(巴拿马和巴巴多斯)到佛罗里达珊瑚礁区域的亚热带纬度的两个地点和三年的15年严重和多年热异常的模式。开发数学模型是为了预测区域层面上的未来变化。在这个项目中实施了一种新的技术方法，光束海真彩色激光雷达和荧光(TCLF)成像仪，以区分相似颜色的物种并自动收集物种和物种相互作用数据。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

The drastic mortality of coral reefs and the low probability of recovery to previous coral states, call for a need to understand how the “new coral reef” community can sustain biodiversity. Recent studies demonstrate that coral reefs shifting from complex coral-dominated communities to macroalgae dominance are unstable and may enhance sponge-dominated reefs, a state becoming common in the Caribbean Sea. How do sponge-dominated reefs function and change the ecosystem structure? And how do they continue to respond to thermal stress? This project aims to answer these questions by evaluating the persistence of sponge-dominated reefs under thermal anomalies and their potential to sustain coral reef biodiversity or aid local extinction. Ecological principles of sponge-dominated reefs are integrated into education curricula to foster the growth of future scientists and/or citizen scientists at local, regional, and global levels. A high school curriculum on coral reef ecology principles in English and Spanish is developed for teachers to download and use in their classrooms. The outreach component includes open seminars for students and faculty to discuss the competitive myth, aiming to improve the female perception of high-level jobs in academia, research, and policy. In addition, it offers youth in foster care the opportunity to explore career paths in marine science.Species interactions alter how each species adapts to change and constitute one of the essential forces structuring ecological communities. However, most theories and experiments on coral reef dynamics do not provide enough information to predict coral reef benthos interactions, succession and evolution. The project evaluates and predicts how current and future Caribbean and Florida coral reefs (sponge-dominated) are changing with a central focus on benthic interactions such as: competition for space by evaluating current and future trends of coral reef benthic interactions under the effect of thermal anomalies; symbiosis, by disentangling how benthic species interactions and associated symbionts function in sponge-dominated reefs; facilitation by discerning to what extent sponge communities serve as habitat-forming animals and how can they sustain coral reef biodiversity; and education by using these ecological interactions as principles to develop teaching, mentoring, and outreach activities from high-school to post-doctoral levels with an inclusive constructivism pedagogical approach. The project evaluates patterns through 15 years of severe and multi-year thermal anomalies in two locations and three years across the Caribbean Sea and Florida, from tropical latitudes in the southern Caribbean Sea (Panama and Barbados) to subtropical latitudes in the Florida Coral Reef Tract. Mathematical models are developed to predict future changes at a regional level. A new technological approach, The BeamSea True-Color Lidar and Fluorescence (TCLF) imager, is implemented in this project to discriminate among similarly colored species and automate the collection of species and species interactions data.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.