Evaluating Biodiversity-Ecosystem Functioning Relationships in Marine Seafloor Habitats

开采海洋资源的压力越来越大，这将要求采取新的战略来维持海洋生物以及我们星球所依赖的相关功能(过程)和服务(例如粮食生产)。我的探索基金研究将侧重于了解海洋海底栖息地的生物多样性和生态系统功能之间的联系。这项工作将推动形成正在进行的学生项目的基础的想法，整合关于营养和碳循环、栖息地提供和食物网支持的特定功能的补充观察和实验工作。已发表的理论将生物多样性和生态系统功能联系在一起，但需要对这些理论和基本过程进行实地验证，特别是在海洋中。海底生物在营养和碳(有机物)循环中发挥着重要作用。我实验室的学生使用统计和预测方法将关键功能和生物多样性以及可变环境的复杂影响联系起来。我们现在增加了操纵性的实验方法来确认模式和致病机制。我们的工作接下来将考虑不同的有机体群体如何对循环做出贡献，以及这些角色如何与有机物质的质量和可用性联系起来。我们还将询问这些功能是如何放大的--小规模的测量是否可以为区域海洋功能地图提供信息。我们还询问多种功能(例如，营养循环与食物网络支持)是如何相互作用的。利用操纵性实验(实验室和现场)，我们将在过去工作的基础上，确定对不同功能最重要的生物多样性元素。不同生境和规模的比较测量和实验将确定推论的普遍性和可行性，以便就维持海洋健康和生产力最重要的生物多样性要素向社会提供建议。*这些同样的问题延伸到栖息地的供应，特别是对于脆弱的早期生活史阶段--哪些生物栖息地支持哪些功能？我们与其他实验室合作，利用遗传学、耳石地球化学、行为研究和生物物理模型来了解与栖息地供应的连接。*食物网支持(浮游植物降雨到海底，沉积物中的无脊椎动物猎物，以同种鱼类和其他鱼类为食的幼鱼)，提供了我们刚刚开始了解的另一个关键的生态系统功能。我的学生喜欢脂类和稳定同位素等工具，它们提供了对食物网过程以及海洋表面和海底联系的新理解。有了这些工具，我们将询问未来海洋情景中浮游植物的预期变化是否会改变海洋海底群落的功能，食物供应的时间是否会改变生物处理碳和循环营养的方式，以及生境斑块如何影响从栖息地提供到有机物循环的功能。

Increasing pressures to extract ocean resources will demand new strategies to sustain ocean life and the associated functions (processes) and services (e.g. food production) on which our planet depends. My Discovery Grant research will focus on understanding biodiversity and ecosystem function linkages in marine seafloor habitats. This work will advance ideas that form the basis of ongoing student projects, integrating complementary observation and experimental work on the specific functions of nutrient and carbon cycling, habitat provisioning, and food web support. Published theory links biodiversity and ecosystem functioning, but requires field verification of the ideas and essential processes, particularly in oceans.******Seafloor organisms play an essential role in nutrient and carbon (organic matter) cycling. Students in my lab use statistical and predictive approaches to link key functions and biodiversity, and the complicating effects of variable environments. We now add manipulative experimental approaches to confirm patterns and causative mechanisms. Our work will next consider how different groups of organisms contribute to cycling and how those roles link to quality and availability of organic matter. We will also ask how these functions scale up – whether small-scale measurements can inform regional maps of ocean function. We also ask how multiple functions (e.g. nutrient recycling vs food web support) interact. Using manipulative experiments (laboratory and field based) we will build on past work to identify the biodiversity elements most important to different functions. Comparative measurements and experiments across habitats and scales will determine the generality and scability of inferences to advise society on the biodiversity elements most essential to sustaining ocean health and productivity. ******These same issues extend to habitat provisioning, particularly for vulnerable early life history stages - which biotic habitat supports which functions? We collaborate with other labs to utilize genetics, otolith geochemistry, behavioural studies, and biophysical modelling to understand connectivity links to habitat provisioning. ******Food web support (phytoplankton rain to the seafloor, invertebrate prey in sediments, juvenile fishes fed on by conspecifics and other fishes), provides another critical ecosystem function we are just beginning to understand. My students embrace tools such as lipids and stable isotopes that offer new understanding of food web processes and ocean surface and seafloor links. With these tools, we will ask whether expected changes in phytoplankton in future ocean scenarios will alter functioning of marine seafloor communities, whether timing of food availability alters how organisms process carbon and cycle nutrients, and how habitat patches influences delivery of functions from habitat provisoning to organic matter recycling.