Project: Using novel ecosystem-scale experiments to quantify drivers of reef productivity in a heavily impacted coastal ecosystem

NSF Award Abstract:
Tropical coastal marine ecosystems (e.g., coral reefs, seagrass beds, and mangroves) are among the most productive ecosystems in the world providing important services, such as fisheries, to millions of people. Despite this, they are also among the most impaired ecosystems, necessitating improved understanding of the mechanisms that underpin their productivity. This project seeks to understand the key factors that drive ecosystem production in a degraded coastal ecosystem in Haiti using artificial reefs. Past research has shown that artificial reefs have substantial potential to increase the number and diversity of plants and animals, but the extent to which this can be achieved at scales relevant to society remains unknown. This project is constructing clusters of artificial reefs to test how (1) spatial arrangement and (2) fishing pressure (fished/not fished) influence the productivity of seagrass, coral, and fish over the course of four years. The fishing treatment is being implemented through collaborations with local fishers whereby small-scale no-take zones are created around three of the six artificial reef clusters. A unique aspect of the research is that it capitalizes on the experimental design to simultaneously achieve an important conservation initiative, while testing ecological theory. Community engagement and outreach are integrated directly into the research and local fishers are being surveyed to assess the extent to which fishing occurred on any of the artificial reefs. This research represents a novel effort to integrate experimentation with cutting-edge community-based conservation initiatives in one of the most impoverished regions of the world. The project is improving strategies for conservation and reef management.

Identifying the factors that regulate the structure and function of ecosystems is a fundamental challenge for ecological theory and applied science. This challenge is often framed within the context of Top-Down (TD) versus Bottom-Up (BU) regulation, but the extent to which this framework can predict processes in complex, real-world ecosystems is not fully understood. It is now widely recognized that TD/BU factors do not act in isolation. For example, in many ecosystems, consumers contribute to both TD (via consumption) and BU (via excretion) pathways. Environmental factors, including human-induced change, can further alter the nature of these interactions. Quantifying the strength of TD and BU pathways and the extent to which they regulate the structure and function in highly dynamic ecosystems requires an experimental system that is sufficiently tractable that all its components can be quantified, while still being representative of real ecosystems. To address this challenge, this research project creates a unique ecosystem-scale artificial reef (AR) experiment in Haiti to test how two factors (AR structure, and fishing pressure) alter the strength of independent and interactive TD and BU pathways to regulate the structure and function of real-world reef ecosystems. Over the course of four years, the production of seagrass (surrounding the ARs), coral (transplanted onto the ARs), and fish (in and around the ARs) is being measured, providing a quantitative assessment of ecosystem-level production across the two treatments. Linear and structural equation models are used to measure the independent and interactive strengths TD and BU pathways, and to identify the suite of directional relationships between each trophic level that best predict overall ecosystem production. Harnessing the ability to use ecosystem-scale experiments and quantify production across all trophic levels in a highly complex, real-world system enables an unprecedented test of TD/BU theory.

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.