CAREER: Assessing effects of ecosystem fragmentation using novel metrics of trophic structure as part of a broad educational outreach program

职业：作为广泛的教育推广计划的一部分，使用营养结构的新指标评估生态系统破碎化的影响

• 批准号: 0746164
• 负责人: Craig Layman
• 金额: $ 77.08万
• 依托单位: Florida International University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2008
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2008-03-01 至 2013-02-28
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0746164&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Assessing; effects; ecosystem; fragmentation

This CAREER proposal will put into place an academic program that prioritizes the direct integration of science and education. The project is structured around three goals: 1. To provide new insights into the effects of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation through the development of novel approaches to study the population- and community-wide aspects of food web structure, 2. To actively engage students and the public through a series of grassroots tidal creek restoration projects, and to use ecosystem-scale manipulations to integrate hypothesis-driven testing of ecological concepts with hands-on learning experiences, and 3. To provide unique educational opportunities for students and the general public, emphasizing opportunities for minorities underrepresented in scientific fields. This project will incorporate recently proposed stable isotope-based metrics as a tool that may reveal unique insights into an organisms? trophic niches, as well as characteristics of the food webs in which they are embedded. In this proposal, the application of these metrics, at both population- and community- levels, is applied in the study of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation. Ecosystem fragmentation is regarded as one of the core causes of global biodiversity loss and the associated erosion of ecosystem function, but most of the research in this area has focused primarily on terrestrial ecosystems. In the Bahamas, fragmentation of tidal creek ecosystems is widespread and can have drastic impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function. With an extremely diverse team of collaborating partners, this proposal outlines an extensive examination of the effects of fragmentation, including application of the new stable isotope-based metrics. The grassroots nature of the project (i.e., local people carry out major parts of the restoration and associated scientific research) provides a unique opportunity for hands-on learning experiences for local citizens and students, in addition to expanding the scope of data to be collected. The end result of this project will be a broader conceptual basis for understanding the effects of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation, as well as a novel set of tools that can be used to test core ecological theory and assess the effects of other anthropogenic impacts.

该职业建议将制定一项学术计划，优先考虑科学与教育的直接整合。 The project is structured around three goals: 1. To provide new insights into the effects of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation through the development of novel approaches to study the population- and community-wide aspects of food web structure, 2. To actively engage students and the public through a series of grassroots tidal creek restoration projects, and to use ecosystem-scale manipulations to integrate hypothesis-driven testing of ecological concepts with hands-on learning experiences, and 3。为学生和公众提供独特的教育机会，强调在科学领域中人数不足的少数民族的机会。 该项目将将最近提出的基于同位素的稳定指标作为一种可能揭示对生物体的独特见解的工具？营养壁ches以及它们嵌入的食物网的特征。 在此提案中，这些指标在人群和社区层面上的应用都应用于水生生态系统破碎研究。 生态系统碎片被认为是全球生物多样性丧失和相关生态系统功能侵蚀的核心原因之一，但该领域的大多数研究主要集中在陆地生态系统上。 在巴哈马，潮汐溪生态系统的碎片化是广泛的，可能对生物多样性和生态系统功能产生巨大影响。该提案与非常多样化的合作伙伴团队，概述了分裂的影响，包括应用新的基于同位素的指标。 该项目的基层本质（即当地人进行恢复和相关科学研究的主要部分）为当地公民和学生提供了独特的机会，除了扩大要收集的数据范围外。该项目的最终结果将是理解水生生态系统碎片作用的更广泛的概念基础，以及可用于测试核心生态理论并评估其他人为影响的效果的新型工具。