Collaborative Research: Intertidal community assembly and dynamics: Integrating broad-scale regional variation in environmental forcing and benthic-pelagic coupling

合作研究：潮间带群落组装和动态：整合环境强迫和底栖-远洋耦合的大范围区域变化

• 批准号: 1458154
• 负责人: Ron Etter
• 金额: $ 37.63万
• 依托单位: University of Massachusetts Boston
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2015
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2015-02-15 至 2020-01-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1458154&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Intertidal; community; assembly

Rocky intertidal habitats in the Gulf of Maine (GoM) provide a model system to examine the structure and dynamics of natural communities. Throughout the Gulf of Maine, the same species are often found in these habitats but community structure, dynamics and productivity differ markedly among 3 distinct regions (southern, central and northern GoM). Past influential work, conducted primarily in the southern and central GoM, focused on the local processes driving intertidal community structure but produced very different conceptual models of how these communities are structured. This project examines whether regional differences in rocky shore community processes are driven by differences in recruitment that are shaped by regional variation in temperature and food availability and nearshore coastal oceanography. This project will improve the understanding of how large-scale environmental forces interact with local processes to control the distribution of species and the structure and dynamics of these communities. Understanding the interaction between processes operating at different scales is fundamentally important to developing more reliable models that can be used to predict community dynamics. In addition, data resulting from this project will have important implications for regional dynamics in commercially important species and for ecosystem and fisheries management within the GoM. Students and postdoctoral researchers will be supported and trained as part of this interdisciplinary project. The overarching hypothesis of this project is that regional differences in community-level processes are driven by very different patterns of population connectivity and recruitment in a few key species and that these differences are ultimately caused by regional variation in temperature and food availability and mediated by physical larval transport processes. Hence, the project will test the following hypotheses with manipulative field experiments, field sampling, connectivity estimates, and integrative modeling: 1) Locally-dispersing species dominate dynamics in regions with a net export of planktonic larvae (Northern GoM), while species with planktonic larvae dominate the dynamics in regions with high settlement and extensive connectivity among populations (Southern GoM). 2) Settlement density of species with planktonic larvae increases from northern to southern regions in accord with regional variation in food availability. 3) Population connectivity varies greatly among regions, with regions differing in the degree to which they are self-seeded or serve as larval sources vs. sinks; self-seeding leads to relatively localized population dynamics in the middle portion of the GoM. 4) Patterns of population connectivity are driven by physical transport processes and can be represented by coupling basic larval behavior models with circulation models. At 18 different sites in the GoM across ~ 600 km, surveys will evaluate variation in recruitment, food availability and secondary productivity and experiments will assess community processes in wave-exposed and sheltered habitats. The project will use hydrographic, current profile, and larval vertical distribution surveys to collect data for coupled larval/circulation models. Population connectivity will be both modeled and empirically evaluated (for one species) using elemental fingerprinting. A spatially explicit metacommunity model will integrate across all project components and test the relative importance of regional and local processes in controlling community organization and dynamics.

缅因州湾（GOM）中岩石的潮间带栖息地提供了一个模型系统来检查自然社区的结构和动态。在缅因州的整个湾，在这些栖息地中经常发现相同的物种，但是在3个不同的地区（南部，中部和北部GOM）之间，社区结构，动态和生产力在明显不同。过去的有影响力的工作主要是在南部和中央GOM进行的，重点是推动潮间带社区结构的当地过程，但对这些社区的结构方式产生了非常不同的概念模型。该项目研究了岩石海岸社区过程中的区域差异是否是由招募差异驱动的，招募的差异是由温度和食品可用性以及近岸沿海海洋学的区域变化所影响的。该项目将提高对大规模环境力量与当地过程相互作用的理解，以控制物种的分布以及这些社区的结构和动态。了解以不同尺度运行的过程之间的相互作用对于开发可用于预测社区动态的更可靠的模型至关重要。此外，该项目产生的数据将对商业重要物种的区域动态以及GOM内的生态系统和渔业管理具有重要意义。作为该跨学科项目的一部分，将为学生和博士后研究人员提供支持和培训。该项目的总体假设是，社区级过程的区域差异是由少数关键物种中的人口连通性和招募模式截然不同的驱动，并且这些差异最终是由温度和食物可用性的区域变化引起的，并由物理幼虫运输过程介导。因此，该项目将通过操纵现场实验，现场抽样，连通性估计和集成建模来检验以下假设：1）局部散布物种在浮游生物幼虫（北部GOM）的净出口区域中占主导地位的动态，而浮游幼虫则占据了高度和多个区域的动态（占地），而跨越了跨度的群众。 2）与粮食可用性区域差异，具有浮游幼虫物种的沉降密度从北部到南部地区增加。 3）人口连通性在区域之间有很大的不同，区域在自我种子的程度上有所不同，或者用作幼虫来源与水槽的程度不同。自种会导致GOM中部相对局部的种群动态。 4）人口连通性的模式是由物理运输过程驱动的，可以通过将基本幼体行为模型与循环模型耦合来表示。在约600公里的GOM中的18个不同地点，调查将评估招聘，食品可用性和次要生产率的差异，实验将评估暴露和庇护的栖息地的社区过程。该项目将使用水文，当前轮廓和幼虫垂直分布调查来收集耦合幼虫/循环模型的数据。人口连通性将使用元素指纹建模和经验评估（对于一种物种）。在空间上明确的元社区模型将在所有项目组件中集成，并测试区域和本地流程在控制社区组织和动态方面的相对重要性。