CAREER: Integrating Ecological Principles of Sponge-Dominated Coral Reefs in the Education Curricula

职业：将海绵珊瑚礁的生态原理纳入教育课程

• 批准号: 2238537
• 负责人: Andia Chaves Fonnegra
• 金额: $ 97.41万
• 依托单位: Florida Atlantic University
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Continuing Grant
• 财政年份: 2023
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2023-05-01 至 2028-04-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2238537&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: CAREER; Integrating; Ecological; Principles; Sponge

The drastic mortality of coral reefs and the low probability of recovery to previous coral states, call for a need to understand how the “new coral reef” community can sustain biodiversity. Recent studies demonstrate that coral reefs shifting from complex coral-dominated communities to macroalgae dominance are unstable and may enhance sponge-dominated reefs, a state becoming common in the Caribbean Sea. How do sponge-dominated reefs function and change the ecosystem structure? And how do they continue to respond to thermal stress? This project aims to answer these questions by evaluating the persistence of sponge-dominated reefs under thermal anomalies and their potential to sustain coral reef biodiversity or aid local extinction. Ecological principles of sponge-dominated reefs are integrated into education curricula to foster the growth of future scientists and/or citizen scientists at local, regional, and global levels. A high school curriculum on coral reef ecology principles in English and Spanish is developed for teachers to download and use in their classrooms. The outreach component includes open seminars for students and faculty to discuss the competitive myth, aiming to improve the female perception of high-level jobs in academia, research, and policy. In addition, it offers youth in foster care the opportunity to explore career paths in marine science.Species interactions alter how each species adapts to change and constitute one of the essential forces structuring ecological communities. However, most theories and experiments on coral reef dynamics do not provide enough information to predict coral reef benthos interactions, succession and evolution. The project evaluates and predicts how current and future Caribbean and Florida coral reefs (sponge-dominated) are changing with a central focus on benthic interactions such as: competition for space by evaluating current and future trends of coral reef benthic interactions under the effect of thermal anomalies; symbiosis, by disentangling how benthic species interactions and associated symbionts function in sponge-dominated reefs; facilitation by discerning to what extent sponge communities serve as habitat-forming animals and how can they sustain coral reef biodiversity; and education by using these ecological interactions as principles to develop teaching, mentoring, and outreach activities from high-school to post-doctoral levels with an inclusive constructivism pedagogical approach. The project evaluates patterns through 15 years of severe and multi-year thermal anomalies in two locations and three years across the Caribbean Sea and Florida, from tropical latitudes in the southern Caribbean Sea (Panama and Barbados) to subtropical latitudes in the Florida Coral Reef Tract. Mathematical models are developed to predict future changes at a regional level. A new technological approach, The BeamSea True-Color Lidar and Fluorescence (TCLF) imager, is implemented in this project to discriminate among similarly colored species and automate the collection of species and species interactions data.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.

珊瑚礁的急剧死亡率和恢复到以前珊瑚状态的可能性很低，需要了解“新珊瑚礁”群落如何维持生物多样性。最近的研究表明，珊瑚礁从复杂的珊瑚群落转变为大型藻类群落。不稳定，可能会增强以海绵为主的珊瑚礁，这是加勒比海常见的一种状态，它们如何发挥作用并改变生态系统结构？该项目旨在回答这些问题。通过评估提出问题海绵为主的珊瑚礁在热异常情况下的持续存在及其维持珊瑚礁生物多样性或帮助当地灭绝的潜力将海绵为主的珊瑚礁的生态原理纳入教育课程，以促进当地未来科学家和/或公民科学家的成长。开发了英语和西班牙语的珊瑚礁生态原理高中课程，供教师下载并在课堂上使用。外展部分包括供学生和教师讨论竞争神话的公开研讨会，旨在提高珊瑚礁生态学原理。女性观念此外，它还为寄养青年提供了探索海洋科学职业道路的机会。物种相互作用改变了每个物种适应变化的方式，并构成了构建生态的重要力量之一。然而，大多数关于珊瑚礁动态的理论和实验都没有提供足够的信息来预测珊瑚礁底栖生物的相互作用、演替和进化，该项目评估和预测了当前和未来的加勒比海和佛罗里达珊瑚礁（以海绵为主）的变化。一个中心焦点关于海底相互作用，例如：通过评估热异常影响下珊瑚礁海底相互作用的当前和未来趋势，通过了解海绵主导的珊瑚礁中海底物种相互作用和相关共生体如何发挥作用，来进行空间竞争；海绵群落在多大程度上充当栖息地形成动物，以及它们如何通过利用这些生态相互作用作为原则来开展从高中到博士后的教学、指导和外展活动，以维持珊瑚礁的生物多样性和教育；该项目通过包容性建构主义教学方法评估了加勒比海和佛罗里达州两个地点和三年来的严重和多年热异常模式，从加勒比海南部的热带纬度（巴拿马和巴巴多斯）到开发了佛罗里达珊瑚礁区域的亚热带纬度数学模型来预测区域层面的未来变化。 BeamSea 真彩色激光雷达和荧光技术。 (TCLF) 成像仪，在该项目中实施，用于区分相似颜色的物种并自动收集物种和物种相互作用数据。该奖项反映了 NSF 的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响进行评估，被认为值得支持审查标准。