RUI: NSF-BSF: PurSUiT:The Indo-Pacific zooxanthellate octocorals: an integrated approach to species delimitation, phylogenetics and biogeography

RUI：NSF-BSF：PurSUiT：印度太平洋虫黄藻八珊瑚：物种定界、系统发育学和生物地理学的综合方法

• 批准号: 1929319
• 负责人: Catherine McFadden
• 金额: $ 83.91万
• 依托单位: Harvey Mudd College
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2019
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2019-10-01 至 2024-09-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1929319&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: RUI; NSF; BSF; PurSUiT; Indo; RUI; NSF; BSF; PurSUiT; Indo

Coral reefs provide food, livelihoods and coastal protection for more than 500 million people worldwide. Yet these ecosystems are among those most threatened, with some studies predicting that coral reefs may not survive into the next century. Efforts to understand the ways in which coral reef communities are changing are impeded by a lack of basic knowledge of the vast majority of the invertebrate animals that contribute to their structure and function. Additionally, changing ocean conditions appear to be shifting the dynamics between stony corals and octocorals in ways that will fundamentally alter the structure and function of reefs, as evidenced by Caribbean reef communities that are increasingly dominated by non-reef-building octocorals. Relative to the well-studied stony corals, however, little is currently known about the basic ecology of most octocorals, including how many and which species co-occur or how their populations vary over space and time, information that is necessary to determine which species may be imperiled by climate change and which may instead be benefitting. This lack of basic information is due in large part to the difficulty of distinguishing and correctly identifying octocoral species, coupled with a dearth of easily accessible resources to facilitate their identification. This project will address this fundamental problem by (1) combining molecular genetic analyses with high-resolution microscopy to discriminate species of octocorals collected from throughout the Indo-Pacific; (2) examining and re-describing historical specimens housed in major museum collections to facilitate the correct assignment of names to those species; and (3) compiling the information within a publicly accessible web portal that will allow users worldwide to generate species checklists and interactive keys for identifying reef-dwelling octocorals. The project represents a collaboration between researchers from the U.S. and Israel. Project participants include a post-doc, Israeli graduate students, undergraduates and high school students from underserved communities in the greater Los Angeles area.Delimitation and validation of shallow-water, zooxanthellate soft corals (families Alcyoniidae, Nephtheidae and Xeniidae) from across the Indo-Pacific (IP) will facilitate the identification of species in future studies of coral reef ecology and biodiversity, leading to increased understanding of the dynamics of coral reef communities in an era of severe deterioration due to global ocean change. DNA barcoding, target-enriched sequence capture of ultraconserved elements and exons, and documentation of morphological characters using high-resolution scanning electron microscopy will be integrated to delimit species among ~5000 specimens of soft corals currently available in museums as well as new collections from across the Indo-Pacific. Simultaneously, all available type material will be documented with modern imaging, re-described as necessary, and sequenced to facilitate assignment of correct (or new) binomens to species. Georeferenced, expert-validated specimen data will be compiled within a publicly available, searchable database with the capability to generate regional species checklists and interactive taxonomic keys. Recognition of species boundaries across the IP will enable the identification of geographic regions with high species richness, high endemicity or phylogenetically unique lineages that may merit special protection. Reconstruction of fully resolved phylogenies for the IP soft coral species will allow the testing of hypotheses about their biogeographic distribution and rates and timing of diversification in comparison to the ecologically similar scleractinian corals, contributing in general to our understanding of macroevolutionary processes in the IP as well as informing conservation and management strategies for reef biota.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.

珊瑚礁为全球超过5亿人提供食物，生计和沿海保护。然而，这些生态系统是受到威胁最大的生态系统，其中一些研究预测珊瑚礁可能无法在下一个世纪生存。缺乏对绝大多数无脊椎动物的基本知识，努力理解珊瑚礁社区正在改变的方式的努力阻碍了他们的结构和功能。此外，不断变化的海洋条件似乎正在以从根本上改变礁石的结构和功能的方式转移石质珊瑚和八角形之间的动态，正如加勒比珊瑚礁社区所证明的那样，这些社区越来越多地由非雷夫建造八角形占主导地位。然而，相对于研究良好的石质珊瑚，目前对大多数八角形的基本生态知之甚少，包括在时空和时间和时间上有多少种类的种群，哪些物种会在时间和时间上变化，确定哪些物种可能会因气候变化而损害哪些物种所必需的信息，而这些信息可能会受到气候变化的影响，而哪些物种可能会受益。缺乏基本信息在很大程度上是由于难以区分和正确识别八碳物种的困难，再加上缺乏易于获得的资源以促进其识别。该项目将通过（1）将分子遗传分析与高分辨率显微镜相结合，以区分从整个印度太平洋地区收集的八角形物种； （2）检查和重新描述的历史标本中存放在主要博物馆收藏中，以促进对这些物种的正确分配； （3）在可公开访问的网站中编译信息，该信息将允许全球用户生成物种清单和交互式键，以识别居住在礁石的八角形。该项目代表了美国和以色列研究人员之间的合作。项目参与者包括大约洛杉矶地区服务不足的社区的以色列研究生，本科生和高中生。降低和验证浅水，Zooxanthellate软珊瑚（Alcyoniiidae farme arcyoniidae，nephtheidae和nephtheidae和Xeniidae froce in Indoe ecipificationallity nif ecal）的识别（iPaidae eclatient）的识别（iP）的识别（iP）识别范围（在全球海洋变化导致的严重恶化的时代，生物多样性导致人们对珊瑚礁社区的动态的了解增加。 DNA条形码，富含目标的序列捕获超保存的元素和外显子的捕获，并使用高分辨率扫描电子显微镜对形态特征进行文献记录，将其集成到目前在博物馆中以及从印度印度太平洋地区的新型收藏中可用的〜5000种软珊瑚标本中的划界物种。同时，所有可用类型的材料都将记录在现代成像中，并根据需要重新描述，并测序以促进正确（或新的）二元群体分配到物种上。将在可公开可用的可搜索数据库中汇编的，专家验证的标本数据，具有生成区域物种清单和交互式分类键的能力。对整个IP的物种边界的识别将使可以鉴定具有高物种丰富度，高流行性或系统发育独特的谱系的地理区域，这可能值得特别保护。 Reconstruction of fully resolved phylogenies for the IP soft coral species will allow the testing of hypotheses about their biogeographic distribution and rates and timing of diversification in comparison to the ecologically similar scleractinian corals, contributing in general to our understanding of macroevolutionary processes in the IP as well as informing conservation and management strategies for reef biota.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed值得通过基金会的智力优点和更广泛的影响审查标准来通过评估来支持。