The influence of biophysical coupling and cross-scale interactions on ecosystems of the Plum Island LTER

生物物理耦合和跨尺度相互作用对普拉姆岛LTER生态系统的影响

• 批准号: 2308605
• 负责人: David Kimbro
• 金额: $ 99.59万
• 依托单位: Northeastern University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-01 至 2027-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2308605&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: influence; biophysical; coupling; cross; scale

Identifying the biological and environmental factors that govern the geographical distribution of organisms is critical for understanding the functioning of natural ecosystems and the myriad benefits that they provide to society. For example, salt marsh ecosystems serve as critical transition zones at the land-sea interface and provide key ecosystem services such as improving water quality via removal of excess nutrients from terrestrial run-off and mitigating coastal erosion via shoreline buffering. This project leverages a combination of field surveys, lab experiments, and mathematical models to predict how the geographical distribution of organisms responsible for these critical ecosystem services is influenced by biological interactions (e.g., competition and predation) as well as environmental factors (e.g., temperature and physical disturbance) that vary with oceanographic currents across a range of New England salt marsh locations. The broader impacts of the project include cross-training of graduate students in biology, statistics, mathematical modeling, and computer programming. In addition, the results of this project will be shared with the Plum Island Ecosystems Long Term Ecological Research (LTER) Network and will be integrated into undergraduate courses in biostatistics, mathematical modeling, and experimental design in order to demonstrate the importance of quantitative and interdisciplinary STEM training for addressing important questions in community and ecosystem ecology. Finally, multiple interactive web modules will be created to enhance the dissemination of the results of this research beyond traditional academic circles, including Northeastern University’s K-12 outreach programs.The overall aim of this project is to determine whether understanding and predicting the dynamics of multi-trophic salt marsh ecosystems across multiple scales hinges upon the integration of physical oceanographic processes and their influence on the supply of allochthonous inputs. This project will be conducted at NSF’s Plum Island LTER and consists of four objectives: (1) repeated surveys of permanently established study plots across three nested spatial scales to quantify the magnitude of allochthonous inputs and the community structure of both marine and terrestrial food webs, allowing an assessment of whether the spatiotemporal distributions of allochthonous inputs and food web architectures are consistent with their putative physical oceanographic drivers; (2) a field experiment that manipulates a gradient in the magnitude of detrital input as well as top-down control by marine fish across three nested spatial scales, enabling an assessment of whether observed survey patterns are driven by bottom-up vs. top-down processes; (3) a fully factorial lab experiment to further disentangle the role of the top-down control by marine fish vs. terrestrial spiders on key ecosystem processes such as primary production, decomposition, herbivory, and predation across a gradient of detrital inputs; and (4) development of a field-parameterized, spatially-explicit mathematical model to determine the independent and joint influences of bottom-up forcing and top-down control on the salt marsh community structure across scales. By combining models and field experiments in a biophysical-allochthonous input framework, this project will leverage the mechanistic insights traditionally associated with community ecology to reveal the joint influence of local and broad-scale processes on the hierarchically organized dynamics of open ecological systems. This project will help inform resource management for New England salt marshes and promote public education by highlighting the importance of quantitative and interdisciplinary STEM training for addressing important questions in biology.This project is jointly funded by Biological Oceanography and the Ecosystems Science Cluster.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.

确定控制生物体地理分布的生物学和环境因素对于理解自然生态系统的功能及其为社会提供的无数益处至关重要。例如，盐沼生态系统在陆地海界面上充当关键过渡区，并提供关键的生态系统服务，例如通过从陆地径流中清除多余的养分来改善水质，并通过海岸线缓冲减轻沿海侵蚀。该项目利用现场调查，实验室实验和数学模型的组合来预测负责这些关键生态系统服务的生物的地理分布如何受到生物学相互作用（例如竞争和预测）以及环境因素（例如，温度和身体灾难）的影响，而这些因素（例如，温度和物理灾难）都与海洋范围内的海洋范围内的新型销售销售范围相比。该项目的更广泛影响包括生物学，统计，数学建模和计算机编程方面的研究生交叉培训。此外，该项目的结果将与Plum Island生态系统长期生态研究（LTER）网络共享，并将集成到生物统计学，数学建模和实验设计的本科课程中，以证明在社区和生态系统生态学中解决重要问题的重要性。最后，将创建多个交互式网络模块，以增强这项研究结果的传播，包括东北大学的K-12外展计划。该项目将在NSF的李子岛（Plum Island）进行，由四个目标组成：（1）在三个嵌套空间尺度上永久建立的研究地的重复调查，以量化同种投入的大小，以及同种海洋和地面食物网的社区结构，可以评估空间临时的物质分配和构造型物质，是否既有构造式的东西又有构造的作品。海洋驱动器； （2）在三个嵌套的空间尺度上，在碎屑输入的大小以及海洋鱼的自上而下控制中操纵梯度的现场实验，从而评估了观察到的调查模式是否由自下而上和自上而下的过程驱动； （3）一项完全阶乘实验室实验，以进一步消除海洋鱼类与陆生蜘蛛在关键生态系统过程中的自上而下控制的作用，例如跨越碎屑投入的梯度，诸如初级生产，分解，草食和制备； （4）开发野外参数化的，空间解释的数学模型，以确定自下而上的强迫和自上而下控制对跨尺度盐沼泽社区结构的独立和关节影响。通过将模型和现场实验相结合，在生物物理 - 体系输入框架中，该项目将利用传统上与社区生态相关的机械洞察力来揭示局部和广泛过程对开放生态系统的层次组织动态的共同影响。该项目将通过强调定量和跨学科的STEM培训对解决生物学重要问题的重要性来帮助资源管理为新英格兰的盐沼泽提供信息，并促进公共教育。该项目由生物海洋学和生态系统科学集群共同资助。该奖项通过评估师的构想及其范围的范围，反映了NSF的诚实审查师生的支持者。