Bench to benthos - predicting ecological community assembly using seagrass restoration

了解物种如何在以前失去它们的地区重新殖民，在使用保护方法恢复这些栖息地后建立新的生态群落，对于确保我们有限的资源得到尽可能有效的利用，最大限度地发挥我们从自然生态系统中获得的好处至关重要。例如，海草草甸提供海岸稳定、生物多样性增强、营养循环，是全球蓝碳捕获的来源，但由于疾病、污染和海岸开发，英国海岸周围已大量丧失。我们正在引领英国和全球的努力，成功地恢复有弹性的海草草甸，以确保后代将从它们提供的关键生态系统服务中受益。以前研究生态群落组装的工作确定了影响最终结果的四个主要过程：(I)每个物种的生物学与当地栖息地的匹配程度(生态位选择)；(Ii)个体从一个地方迁移到另一个地方的容易程度(分散)；(Iii)随机事件在促进或减少成功方面的重要性(生态漂移)；以及(Iv)物种基因的变异以一种有利于它们的方式积累的速度有多快(基因多样化)。这项工作通常是通过对细菌等微生物进行简化的实验室实验，或者使用数学方程和计算机来预测重新定居模式如何随着时间的推移而发展的。其他方法依赖于通过使用社区的当前快照来推断社区集会所涉及的历史机制，这可能会受到我们无法控制的因素的强烈影响。虽然这些方法是建立我们对不同生态组装过程重要性的理解的重要第一步，但我们缺乏来自更复杂的自然生态系统重组之旅开始时的数据和证据，无法正确测试理论上的进步在现实世界中的应用这种增加的自然复杂性可能会带来令人惊讶或意想不到的新特征，而以前的工作无法解释或预测这些特征。我们的项目将结合以前基于实验室和数学方法的见解，以及生活在海草根和叶上的微生物的现场数据，这些微生物来自最近恢复的英国海草草甸(1至5年)。在海草恢复的早期阶段，我们将开发和测试关于上面定义的四个组装过程的相对重要性的新预测。重要的是，我们还将建立一个全球研究人员网络，以提供进一步的专业知识和海草恢复后期的数据。我们预测，考虑到这一系统的物理和时间限制，生态位选择和生态漂移将是决定这些重要但受到威胁的生态系统的长期成功、弹性和稳定性的最重要因素。我们的工作将是第一次直接评估在这个全球重要的生态系统中推动早期社区聚集的机制。

Understanding how species re-colonise an area they have previously been lost from, to assemble new ecological communities after conservation methods are used to restore these habitats, is vital to ensure our limited resources are used as effectively as possible, maximising the benefits we get from natural ecosystems. For example, seagrass meadows provide coastal stabilisation, biodiversity enhancement, nutrient cycling, and are a global source of blue carbon capture, yet have been substantially lost from around the UK coast due to disease, pollution, and coastal development. We are pioneering UK and global efforts to successfully restore resilient seagrass meadows to ensure that future generations will benefit from the crucial ecosystem services they provide.Previous work studying ecological community assembly has identified four main processes that affect the final outcome: (i) how well each species' biology fits with the local habitat (niche selection); (ii) how easily individuals can move from one place to another (dispersal); (iii) how important random events are in promoting or reducing success (ecological drift); and (iv) how quickly variation in species genones can accumulate in a way that benefits them (genetic diversification). This work has generally been carried out using simplified laboratory experiments with micro-organisms like bacteria, or with mathematical equations and computers, to predict how patterns of re-colonisation develop over time. Other approaches have relied on inferring the historical mechanisms involved with community assembly by using current snapshots of the community, which can be strongly influenced by factors beyond our control. While these approaches are important first steps in building our understanding of the importance of different ecological assembly processes, we lack data and evidence from more complex, natural ecosystems at the start of their re-assembly journey to properly test the real-world application of advances in theory This increased natural complexity may introduce surprising or unexpected new features that previous work was unable to account for or predict. Our project will combine insights from previous laboratory- and mathematical-based approaches, with field data of the micro-organisms that live on the seagrass roots and leaves, from recently restored UK seagrass meadows (1 to 5 years old). We will develop and test novel predictions about the relative importance of the four assembly processes defined above, during the early phases of seagrass restoration. Importantly, we will also build a global network of researchers to provide further expertise and data from later stages of seagrass restoration. We predict that niche selection and ecological drift will be most important for determining the longer-term success, resilience and stability of these vital but threatened ecosystems, given the physical and temporal limitations of this system. Our work will be the first to directly assess the mechanisms that drive early community assembly in this globally important ecosystem.