Not just corals and fishes: distribution modelling and management of dark diversity on coral reefs

不仅仅是珊瑚和鱼类：珊瑚礁暗多样性的分布建模和管理

• 批准号: 2612881
• 金额: --
• 依托单位: Imperial College London
• 依托单位国家: 英国
• 项目类别: Studentship
• 财政年份: 2020
• 资助国家: 英国
• 起止时间: 2020 至 无数据
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://gtr.ukri.org/projects?ref=studentship-2612881
• 关键词: just; corals; fishes; distribution; modelling

Human pressures are increasingly reshaping the biosphere with dire consequences for biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (IPBES, 2019). Collective global action to reverse declines in biodiversity and limit environmental damage have been hindered by a lack of robust indicators of ecological change that can help target vulnerable ecosystems and evaluate the effectiveness of policy decisions. However, next-generation biomonitoring approaches using DNA sequencing now provide the opportunity to create a powerful and rapid indicator of ecological change (Bohan et al., 2017; Dornelas et al., 2019). DNA sequencing enables rapid estimates of the biological composition and functional attributes of whole ecosystems. It consists of the bulk extraction of DNA from environmental samples, followed by the mass amplification and identification of a multitude of taxa, and functional genes based on universal markers (Leray and Knowlton, 2015; Ransome et al., 2017). These approaches produce enormous quantities of data but remain limited by the lack of standardised analytical pipelines that can generate metrics for use in policy frameworks. Coral reefs provide an ideal system in which to continue development of bulk environmental DNA analysis for ecosystem monitoring, and its application to evidence-based policy. Coral reefs are exceptionally vulnerable to many of the accelerating global drivers of change which are impacting all ecosystems - so providing an early indicator of the magnitude of future change possible (Hoegh et al., 2017). They are globally threatened and prioritised (Wear et al., 2016) - so ensuring strong public and government attention, and they harbour the greatest diversity of marine species on the planet, including vast cryptic diversity (Pandolf et al., 2003; Jackson et al., 2014; Hughes et al., 2017) - so providing a challenging system for traditional biomonitoring. This project will use sequencing data from bulk samples of cryptic reef taxa to develop cutting-edge species distribution models across global reefs in collaboration with the Smithsonian Institute Global ARMS Program (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/global-arms-program) the project will: develop tools to better quantify diversity from the cytochrome c oxidase subunit I (COI) gene region, and other taxonomic marker genes, which play pivotal roles in the global effort to document biodiversity; quantify the inflation of diversity using available methods and tackle current limitations, such as the influence of pseudogenes on species delimitation (Tay et al., 2017; Brandt et al., 2019) develop joint distribution models of cryptic reef taxa to elucidate key species interactions, using an existing dataset that spans more than 100 reef sites across the Pacific; use models to explore the role of possible drivers of functional and compositional ecological attributes (e.g. threats and conservation actions) using benthic community data and satellite-derived datasets; and develop metrics to inform policy recommendations for the monitoring, management and conservation of ecosystems.

人类压力日益重塑生物圈，对生物多样性和生态系统功能造成可怕后果（IPBES，2019）。由于缺乏强有力的生态变化指标，无法帮助瞄准脆弱的生态系统并评估政策决策的有效性，因此阻碍了扭转生物多样性下降和限制环境破坏的全球集体行动。然而，使用 DNA 测序的下一代生物监测方法现在提供了创建强大而快速的生态变化指标的机会（Bohan 等人，2017 年；Dornelas 等人，2019 年）。 DNA 测序能够快速估计整个生态系统的生物组成和功能属性。它包括从环境样本中大量提取 DNA，然后大规模扩增和鉴定多种类群以及基于通用标记的功能基因（Leray 和 Knowlton，2015 年；Ransome 等人，2017 年）。这些方法产生了大量数据，但由于缺乏可以生成用于政策框架的指标的标准化分析管道，仍然受到限制。 珊瑚礁提供了一个理想的系统，可以继续开发用于生态系统监测的大量环境 DNA 分析，并将其应用于循证政策。珊瑚礁特别容易受到许多正在加速的全球变化驱动因素的影响，这些变化正在影响所有生态系统 - 因此提供了未来可能发生的变化程度的早期指标（Hoegh 等，2017）。它们受到全球威胁并受到优先考虑（Wear 等人，2016 年），因此确保了公众和政府的强烈关注，并且它们拥有地球上最多样化的海洋物种，包括巨大的神秘多样性（Pandolf 等人，2003 年；Jackson 等人） al., 2014; Hughes et al., 2017) - 因此为传统生物监测提供了一个具有挑战性的系统。 该项目将与史密森学会全球 ARMS 计划 (https://naturalhistory.si.edu/research/global-arms-计划）该项目将： 开发工具来更好地量化细胞色素 C 氧化酶亚基 I (COI) 基因区域和其他分类标记基因的多样性，这些基因在全球记录生物多样性的努力中发挥着关键作用； 使用现有方法量化多样性的膨胀并解决当前的局限性，例如假基因对物种界定的影响（Tay 等人，2017 年；Brandt 等人，2019 年）开发隐秘珊瑚礁类群的联合分布模型，以阐明关键物种的相互作用，使用涵盖太平洋 100 多个珊瑚礁地点的现有数据集； 利用底栖群落数据和卫星数据集，利用模型探索功能和组成生态属性（例如威胁和保护行动）的可能驱动因素的作用；制定衡量标准，为生态系统监测、管理和保护的政策建议提供信息。