Long-term changes in coastal ecosystem structure and functions: understanding the effects of harvesting, habitat alteration, and climate change

沿海生态系统结构和功能的长期变化：了解捕捞、栖息地改变和气候变化的影响

• 批准号: RGPIN-2014-04491
• 负责人: Lotze, Heike
• 金额: $ 3.64万
• 依托单位: Dalhousie University
• 依托单位国家: 加拿大
• 项目类别: Discovery Grants Program - Individual
• 财政年份: 2016
• 资助国家: 加拿大
• 起止时间: 2016-01-01 至 2017-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nserc-crsng.gc.ca/ase-oro/Details-Detailles_eng.asp?id=611068
• 关键词: Long; term; changes; coastal; ecosystem

Coastal ecosystems are important structural and functional components of the ocean and provide essential services to human well-being, including seafood production, nutrient cycling, recreation and coastal protection. Yet they have been deeply transformed over historical time scales and continue to be altered by multiple human activities. In order to assess and properly manage marine resources and coastal ecosystems today and for the future, it is essential to understand the range, magnitude and consequences of long-term changes in the past. Like knowledge of a patient’s medical history greatly improves the success of diagnosis and treatment, reconstruction of historical changes provides critical context for current study and management. My research program is unique in providing this historical context while analyzing ongoing changes and their consequences at the ecosystem scale. We have made significant progress in assessing historical changes in marine populations, particularly for vertebrates such as mammals and fish. We synthesized both the extent of population declines over past centuries and recent recoveries due to increased conservation, and quantified major ecosystem consequences, such as changes in biodiversity, food-web complexity and stability. Yet while vertebrates have received increased protection and management, exploitation of marine invertebrates and plants is rapidly expanding, both in Canada and around the world, with little population assessment and largely unknown ecosystem consequences. In contrast to most fish, invertebrates and plants often play important ecosystem roles beyond predator-prey relationships, including habitat provision, water filtration and nutrient cycling. These low-trophic level species are also sensitive to increasing climate variability and nutrient loading. Over the next five years my research will therefore reconstruct long-term changes in marine invertebrates and plants, and analyze their consequences for coastal ecosystem structure, functions, and the services they provide for humans. Specifically, we will assess historical research surveys and fisheries statistics to derive long-term changes in the abundance and distribution of marine plants and invertebrates. To understand the consequences of observed changes, we will employ meta-analysis of experimental and field data to quantify the ecosystem functions and services provided by these species, including habitat provision, water filtration, detritus removal, carbon storage and nutrient cycling. As a third element, we will build food-web models from field-survey data and use coastal ecosystem models from around the world to analyze the consequences of marine plant and invertebrate harvesting on other species of commercial and conservation interest, and overall ecosystem structure and functions. Finally, we will use laboratory experiments to test the effects of climate warming and nutrient loading on habitat-building plants and their associated communities. Experimental results and global climate models will then be used as inputs in our ecosystem models to assess the broader consequences of projected climate change on marine ecosystems. Taken together, the proposed work will fill critical knowledge gaps that are important to understand past and ongoing changes in the coastal ocean, predict their broader consequences for marine ecosystems and human society, and inform an ecosystem-based approach to marine management and conservation. As such, this research will support managers and decision makers, and benefit resource users and society as a whole. It will advance our fundamental understanding in marine ecology, environmental history and ecological forecasting, and train students in an innovative, inter-disciplinary research field.

沿海生态系统是海洋的重要和策略，并为人类的养分骑自行车，CETNESS和沿海保护提供了重要的服务。在过去的范围，长期变化的范围和后果评估历史的变化，例如哺乳动物和鱼类等脊椎动物。加拿大和世界各地的人口评估很少，大量的生态系统经常扮演重要的生态系统角色，超越了培训者的关系，倾斜的栖息地提供，水过滤和营养循环。在海洋无脊椎动物中构建长期变化，并分析其尚符生态系统结构，功能及其对UMANS的服务。要了解这些物种所证明的观察到的变化宇宙功能和服务的后果，包括栖息地提供，水过滤，碳存储和TCYCLING作为第三元素，我们将从周围构建Food-Web模型现场调查数据和沿海生态系统模型为了分析海洋植物和无脊椎动物对其他和保护兴趣的收获，以及整体生态系统的结构和功能，我们将使用实验室实验来攀登和营养载荷的效果。 ASED ASIR生态系统模型苔丝对海洋生态系统的变化的ER后果作为进步，我们对海洋生态，环境历史和生态预测的基本理解，并在创新的，跨学科的研究领域培训学生。