Dissertation Research: Impacts of Biological Diversity on Sediment Transport Conditions in Streams

论文研究：生物多样性对河流中沉积物输送条件的影响

• 批准号: 1110571
• 负责人: Bradley Cardinale
• 金额: $ 1.5万
• 依托单位: University of California-Santa Barbara
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-06-01 至 2013-05-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1110571&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Dissertation; Research; Impacts; Biological; Diversity

Many fields of natural science suggest that organisms both respond to and also directly regulate the physical processes that structure ecosystems, in ways that have major implications for how the current loss of Earth?s biodiversity will affect our planet. A growing number of studies incorporates the influence of organisms into our understanding of biogeochemical cycles, functioning of ecosystems, and formation of habitats. Most of these studies still consider the influence of only one species at a time, ignoring the diverse array of species that might have unique impacts. The project proposed here will explicitly ask how interactions between coexisting species influence the physical process of erosion. In this project, caddisfly (Trichoptera: Hydropsychidae) diversity in experimental streams will be manipulated. Caddisflies are one of the most diverse and widespread groups of insects that live in riverbeds. They construct silken nets across pore spaces between rocks to filter feed, and previous studies have shown that nets from a single species reduce sediment motion during floods. This study will test whether multiple species of caddisfly that coexist in the same stream cause a synergistic decrease in sediment motion compared to any single species alone. Predicting sediment transport has become increasingly important in light of land-use changes, altered flow regimes, and channel-restoration efforts, and this work will help develop a better understanding of one of the most important processes in ecology and geology. Although many researchers have shown that a single biological species can have a substantial impact on abiotic processes, few studies have mechanistically explored how multiple species of animals can synergistically regulate fundamental transport processes in streams. This approach will refine our ability to quantitatively predict erosion.

许多自然科学领域都表明，生物体对生态系统的构造的物理过程有反应，并以对当前地球生物多样性损失的主要影响的方式影响我们的星球。越来越多的研究将生物的影响纳入了我们对生物地球化学周期，生态系统功能以及栖息地形成的理解。这些研究中的大多数仍然一次考虑一次只有一个物种的影响，而忽略了可能产生独特影响的各种物种。这里提出的项目将明确询问共存物种之间的相互作用如何影响侵蚀的物理过程。在这个项目中，将操纵实验流中的Caddisfly（毛翅目：Hydropsychidae）多样性。卡迪斯氟是生活在河床中的最多样化，最广泛的昆虫之一。他们在岩石之间构造丝绸网以过滤饲料，先前的研究表明，来自单个物种的网减少了洪水期间的沉积物运动。这项研究将测试在同一流中共存的多种循环是否会导致与单独的任何单一物种相比，在同一流中共存会导致沉积物运动的协同减少。鉴于土地利用变化，流动制度和渠道恢复工作的变化，预测沉积物的运输变得越来越重要，这项工作将有助于更好地了解生态和地质学中最重要的过程之一。尽管许多研究人员表明，单个生物种类可能会对非生物过程产生重大影响，但很少有研究从机械上探讨了多种动物如何协同调节溪流中的基本运输过程。这种方法将完善我们定量预测侵蚀的能力。