EAR-PF: Multi-Scale Calibrations of Fecal Biomarkers: New Tools to Evaluate How Herbivores Shaped Past Ecosystem Dynamics

EAR-PF：粪便生物标志物的多尺度校准：评估食草动物如何塑造过去生态系统动态的新工具

基本信息

批准号：
2204471
负责人：
Allison Karp
金额：
$ 18万
依托单位：
Karp, Allison Tyler
依托单位国家：
美国
项目类别：
Fellowship Award
财政年份：
2022
资助国家：
美国
起止时间：
2022-08-01 至 2024-07-31
项目状态：
已结题

来源：
https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2204471&HistoricalAwards=false
关键词：
EAR PF Multi Scale Calibrations

项目摘要

Dr. Allison Karp has been granted an NSF EAR Postdoctoral Fellowship to carry out research and education plans at Yale University and Brown University. Large-bodied mammalian herbivores are under threat, but it is unclear how these currently shifting communities may affect vegetation, fire and nutrient cycles. While these dynamics can be tested by examining how herbivores impacted ecosystem functions in the past, the tools available to reconstruct herbivore community changes alongside other environmental variables are limited. This research will fundamentally improve geochemical tools to analyze past herbivore dynamics by investigating herbivore biomarkers using samples from a National Park in South Africa with diverse wild herbivores. Dr. Karp will also develop educational and outreach materials for two parts of Yale’s Pathways to Science, which provides free scientific programing to middle and high-schoolers in New Haven as well as the greater public. This work will improve reconstructions of past herbivore dynamics from sediment cores with a comprehensive study to constrain if information about herbivore densities and community characteristics can be derived from fecal biomarkers produced from wild herbivore communities. To this end, Dr. Karp will conduct an integrated multi-scale calibration project in Kruger National Park (South Africa). The focus on African savannas, one of the few systems with a community of diverse megaherbivores, optimizes these calibrations to address questions related to shifts in extinct Quaternary herbivore communities. This research will: 1) test whether variation in fecal biomarker concentrations and distributions in dung is related to variation in herbivore functional groups, 2) examine fecal biomarker concentrations and microbial degradation in soils from decade-long herbivore exclusion experiment plots, and 3) calibrate sedimentary fecal biomarker characteristics to variation in the abundance and diversity of historical herbivore communities through time. This project combines the perspectives of modern and paleo-ecologists to produce paleoenvironmental insights grounded in modern settings.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.

艾莉森·卡普 (Allison Karp) 博士获得了 NSF EAR 博士后奖学金，以在耶鲁大学和布朗大学开展研究和教育计划。大型食草哺乳动物受到威胁，但目前尚不清楚这些正在变化的群落如何影响植被、火灾和环境。虽然可以通过检查过去食草动物如何影响生态系统功能来测试这些动态，但可用于重建食草动物群落变化以及其他环境变量的工具是有限的，这项研究将从根本上改进分析过去的地球化学工具。卡普博士还将通过使用来自南非国家公园的多种野生食草动物样本来研究食草动物生物标志物，从而了解食草动物动态。这项工作将通过一项全面的研究来改善对沉积岩芯过去食草动物动态的重建，以限制有关食草动物密度和群落特征的信息是否可以从中获得。为此，卡普博士将在克鲁格国家公园（南非）开展一项综合多尺度校准项目，重点关注非洲稀树草原，这是少数拥有多种大型食草动物群落的系统之一。，优化这些校准，以解决与灭绝的第四纪食草动物群落变化相关的问题。这项研究将：1）测试粪便生物标志物浓度和分布的变化是否与粪便中的变化有关。食草动物功能群，2）检查长达十年的食草动物排除实验地的土壤中粪便生物标志物浓度和微生物降解，以及3）根据历史食草动物群落的丰度和多样性随时间的变化校准沉积粪便生物标志物特征。现代和古生态学家的观点，以产生基于现代环境的古环境见解。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识进行评估，被认为值得支持优点和更广泛的影响审查标准。