Postdoctoral Fellowship: OCE-PRF: Do Pelagic Subsidies Modulate Coral Survivorship in a Warming Ocean?

博士后奖学金：OCE-PRF：远洋补贴是否会调节海洋变暖中的珊瑚生存？

• 批准号: 2307785
• 负责人: Connor Love
• 金额: $ 33.86万
• 依托单位: University of Rhode Island
• 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: 2023-10-15 至 2025-09-30
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2307785&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Postdoctoral; Fellowship; OCE; PRF; Do

Coral reefs occupy less than 1% of the ocean floor yet host more than 25% of all marine biodiversity. Reef ecosystems provide shoreline protection, pharmaceuticals, fishing and tourism revenue, and significant protein to more than one billion people. Currently, coral reefs are under great threat due to rising global ocean temperatures leading to coral bleaching, habitat degradation and loss of ecosystem function. Recent oceanographic advances show that while global ocean temperature rises, regional scale ocean currents, upwelling and internal waves play essential roles in coral survivorship and ecosystem preservation as the ocean continues to warm. This project aims to uncover the mechanisms of this observed phenomenon in a model reef upwelling system in the southern Red Sea. This study will enable identification of reef ecosystems around the world that will remain resilient to climate change due to shifts in regional oceanography. This project will involve support for a U.S. based conference with international scientists who are leading conservation efforts in the Indo-Pacific and the Red Sea. Additionally, students at the University of Rhode Island will contribute to the project and will be mentored in oceanographic data science and analytical chemistry. Overall, this project aims to uncover the complex response of coral reefs to regional oceanographic patterns and global ocean warming with an emphasis on international collaboration and coral reef conservation.Growing evidence suggests that reefs that experience seasonal upwelling or internal waves could serve as vital coral refugia in the next ~50 years. Deep water shoaling onto reefs provides pelagic subsidies in the form of essential nutrients, particles, and plankton that can enhance coral feeding and growth. But there is an essential knowledge gap regarding how reefs that experience upwelling will respond to these subsidies and how this influences coral survivorship to rising global ocean temperatures. The proposed work aims to connect “bottom-up” oceanographic forcing of planktonic food webs and link this to coral trophic dynamics and the subsequent thermal stress tolerance outfalls of the realized trophic niche of corals. Using a multi-faceted analytical chemistry approach involving compound-specific isotope analysis of amino acids, fatty acid analysis and recently developed “stress-test” detectors, the project plans to test three hypotheses. The three hypotheses are aimed to answer vital questions regarding open-ocean reef connectivity, variations in coral feeding to upwelling and coral stress response due to shifts in mixotrophy. This work will answer key mechanistic unknowns of upwelling on coral reefs and enable predictive power for coral survivorship on upwelling reefs around the world.This project is jointly funded by GEO/OCE Postdoctoral Fellowships Program and the Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR).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.

珊瑚礁仅占海底的不到 1%，但却拥有超过 25% 的海洋生物多样性。目前，珊瑚礁为超过 10 亿人口提供海岸线保护、药品、渔业和旅游业收入以及重要的蛋白质。由于全球海洋温度上升导致珊瑚白化、栖息地退化和生态系统功能丧失，珊瑚礁受到巨大威胁。最近的海洋学进展表明，虽然全球海洋温度上升，但区域范围的洋流、上升流和内波在珊瑚生存和生态系统中发挥着至关重要的作用。该项目旨在揭示红海南部模型珊瑚礁上升流系统中观察到的这种现象的机制，该研究将有助于识别世界各地因气候变化而保持弹性的珊瑚礁生态系统。该项目将支持在美国举行的与领导印度太平洋和红海保护工作的国际科学家举行的会议。此外，罗德岛大学的学生也将为该项目做出贡献。接受海洋数据科学方面的指导总体而言，该项目旨在揭示珊瑚礁对区域海洋模式和全球海洋变暖的复杂反应，重点是国际合作和珊瑚礁保护。越来越多的证据表明，经历季节性上升流或内波的珊瑚礁可以发挥作用。作为未来约 50 年重要的珊瑚礁，深水浅滩以必需的营养物质、颗粒和浮游生物的形式提供了中上层的补贴，可以增强珊瑚的摄食和生长，但对于珊瑚礁如何提供营养物质、颗粒和浮游生物，存在着重要的知识差距。经验上升流将对这些补贴做出反应，以及这如何影响珊瑚的生存与全球海洋温度上升。拟议的工作旨在将浮游食物网的“自下而上”海洋强迫联系起来，并将其与珊瑚营养动态和随后的热应力耐受性排放口联系起来。该项目计划使用多方面的分析化学方法，包括氨基酸的化合物特异性同位素分析、脂肪酸分析和最近开发的“压力测试”探测器，对已实现的珊瑚营养位进行测试。这三个假设旨在回答有关公海珊瑚礁连通性、珊瑚对上升流的摄食变化以及混合营养变化引起的珊瑚应激反应的重要问题，这项工作将回答珊瑚礁上升流的关键机制未知问题，并提供预测能力。该项目由 GEO/OCE 博士后奖学金计划和刺激竞争性研究既定计划 (EPSCoR) 联合资助。该奖项反映了通过使用基金会的智力价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，NSF 的法定使命被认为值得支持。