Collaborative research: Coral community resilience: testing the role of hidden diversity in pocilloporid corals at Moorea

合作研究：珊瑚群落复原力：测试莫雷阿岛细孔珊瑚隐藏多样性的作用

• 批准号: 1829898
• 负责人: Peter Edmunds
• 金额: $ 8.28万
• 依托单位: The University Corporation, Northridge
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2018
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2018-09-01 至 2023-08-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1829898&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; research; Coral; community; resilience

While most coral reefs in the world are threatened by multiple disturbances that are driving coral cover downward, the coral reefs at Mo'orea, French Polynesia, provide a striking exception. However, it is not yet clear what makes the coral communities of Mo'orea an exception to the trend of global decline in coral cover, and what drives spatial variation in recovery patterns around the island. The most recent wave of recovery on the outer reefs is dominated by corals in the genus Pocillopora (the cauliflower coral). While the colonies of this coral all look similar to one another, they actually represent multiple 'hidden' species that are genetically divergent but visibly indistinguishable. The morphological similarity makes it hard to identify species in the field, and this often forces researchers to pool these corals into a single group, which has impeded a full understanding of coral recovery. The ecological differences among these hidden species remain poorly understood, but they may be a crucial factor keeping the ecosystem in a coral-dominated state. This project is studying how 'hidden diversity' provides a form of 'ecological insurance' that provides reef-building coral communities around this island with ecological and evolutionary options that buffer reefs from unpredictable and unfavorable environmental conditions. If multiple cryptic species exhibit a diversity of responses to disturbance and stress, then it increases the ability of the community to recover and re-organize after impacts compared to that if all the species responded the same way. By studying the reefs at Mo'orea, this project provides unique, important, and transferable knowledge to better understand fundamental mechanism driving coral community recovery following catastrophic damage, and will provide much-needed information to better manage coral reefs and favor them remaining in a coral-dominated state. A PhD student and a postdoctoral researcher at Florida State University (FSU) are being supported and mentored during the project, and a program of professional growth is being provided for a technician who will work on the project. The investigators are working with science educators from Florida schools to introduce marine biology clubs that will provide outreach opportunities for FSU and California State University Northridge participants to engage high school students and teachers in the research themes at the core of this project.This project will test the hypothesis that the presence of morphologically similar yet genetically divergent lineages of corals in the genus Pocillopora drives rapid recovery of coral communities dominated by Pocillopora on the outer reefs of Mo'orea, French Polynesia. By creating a diverse portfolio in the capacity of the Pocillopora community to recover and reorganize after disturbance, hidden ecological differences among coral lineages in their response to disturbance is expected to promote community resilience. A well-studied genetic marker will be used to distinguish coral colonies among different lineages. Field-based projects, co-located with Moorea Coral Reef-Long-Term Ecological Research (MCR-LTER) sites, will determine how pocilloporid lineages differ in their distribution and abundance, spatial and temporal patterns of annual recruitment, symbiont composition, and post-settlement growth and survival. These data will be used to build Integral Projection Models (IPMs) to compare population differences among lineages in their sensitivity to size-dependent perturbations, and their capacity for population growth following disturbance. Results from the field projects and IPMs will be synthesized to estimate response diversity as the multivariate dispersion of lineage dissimilarity, and to assess the extent to which it predicts variation among sites in the recovery rate of pocilloporid percent cover, estimated empirically from the MCR-LTER time series. The intellectual merits of this project lie in developing new and transferable understanding of: i) the ecological differences within an ecologically important coral genus, ii) why pocilloporids at Mo'orea are an exception to the global trend of declining coral cover, and iii) the potential for hidden response diversity to act as a fundamental mechanism determining the capacity for coral communities to reestablish and reorganize following disturbances.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

虽然世界上大多数珊瑚礁都受到多种干扰的威胁，导致珊瑚覆盖面积下降，但法属波利尼西亚莫雷阿岛的珊瑚礁却是一个惊人的例外。然而，目前尚不清楚是什么使莫雷阿岛的珊瑚群落成为全球珊瑚覆盖面积下降趋势的例外，以及是什么驱动了该岛周围恢复模式的空间变化。外礁最近的复苏浪潮主要是 Pocillopora 属（花椰菜珊瑚）的珊瑚。虽然这种珊瑚的群落看起来彼此相似，但它们实际上代表了多个“隐藏”物种，这些物种在基因上存在差异，但明显无法区分。形态上的相似性使得很难在野外识别物种，这常常迫使研究人员将这些珊瑚集中到一个组中，这阻碍了对珊瑚恢复的充分了解。这些隐藏物种之间的生态差异仍然知之甚少，但它们可能是保持生态系统处于珊瑚主导状态的关键因素。该项目正在研究“隐藏的多样性”如何提供一种“生态保险”，为该岛周围的珊瑚礁群落提供生态和进化选择，缓冲珊瑚礁免受不可预测和不利环境条件的影响。如果多个隐秘物种对干扰和压力表现出多样性的反应，那么与所有物种都以相同的方式做出反应相比，它会增加群落在受到影响后恢复和重组的能力。通过研究莫雷阿岛的珊瑚礁，该项目提供了独特、重要且可转移的知识，以更好地了解灾难性破坏后驱动珊瑚群落恢复的基本机制，并将提供急需的信息，以更好地管理珊瑚礁并有利于它们保持在以珊瑚为主的州。佛罗里达州立大学 (FSU) 的一名博士生和一名博士后研究员在该项目期间得到支持和指导，并为参与该项目的技术人员提供专业成长计划。研究人员正在与佛罗里达州学校的科学教育工作者合作，推出海洋生物学俱乐部，为佛罗里达州立大学和加州州立大学北岭分校的参与者提供推广机会，让高中生和教师参与该项目核心的研究主题。该项目将测试该假设认为，Pocillopora 属中存在形态相似但基因不同的珊瑚谱系，推动了法属波利尼西亚莫雷阿岛外礁上以 Pocillopora 为主的珊瑚群落的快速恢复。通过创建多样化的组合，使波西洛珊瑚群落能够在干扰后恢复和重组，珊瑚谱系之间隐藏的生态差异在对干​​扰的反应中有望促进群落的恢复力。经过充分研究的遗传标记将用于区分不同谱系的珊瑚群落。与莫雷阿岛珊瑚礁长期生态研究 (MCR-LTER) 站点位于同一地点的实地项目将确定细孔虫谱系在分布和丰度、年度补充的时空模式、共生体组成和后期方面有何不同。 - 定居点的增长和生存。这些数据将用于构建积分投影模型（IPM），以比较谱系之间的种群差异，即它们对大小相关扰动的敏感性以及扰动后种群增长的能力。将综合实地项目和 IPM 的结果，以估计作为谱系差异的多元分散的响应多样性，并评估其预测点之间的 Pocilporid 覆盖率恢复率差异的程度，根据 MCR-LTER 经验估计时间序列。该项目的智力价值在于发展对以下问题的新的、可转移的理解：i) 具有重要生态意义的珊瑚属内的生态差异，ii) 为什么莫雷阿岛的细孔珊瑚是全球珊瑚覆盖面积下降趋势中的例外，以及 iii)隐藏的反应多样性作为决定珊瑚群落在干扰后重建和重组能力的基本机制的潜力。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优点和能力进行评估，被认为值得支持。更广泛的影响审查标准。

项目成果

Response diversity in corals: hidden differences in bleaching mortality among cryptic Pocillopora species

珊瑚的反应多样性：隐秘的波西洛珊瑚物种之间白化死亡率的隐藏差异

• DOI: 10.1002/ecy.3324
• 发表时间: 2021-06
• 期刊: Ecology
• 影响因子: 4.8
• 作者: Burgess, Scott C.;Johnston, Erika C.;Wyatt, Alex S. J.;Leichter, James J.;Edmunds, Peter J.
• 通讯作者: Edmunds, Peter J.

Emergent properties of branching morphologies modulate the sensitivity of coral calcification to high P CO2

分支形态的新兴特性调节珊瑚钙化对高 P CO2 的敏感性

• DOI: 10.1242/jeb.217000
• 发表时间: 2020-04
• 期刊: The Journal of Experimental Biology
• 作者: Edmunds, Peter J.;Burgess, Scott C.
• 通讯作者: Burgess, Scott C.