NSF PRFB FY 2023: Impacts of animal aggregations on stream carbon cycles: Linking evolutionary history, species traits, and environmental context to predict ecosystem function

This action funds an NSF Postdoctoral Research Fellowship in Biology for FY 2023, Integrative Research Investigating the Rules of Life Governing Interactions Between Genomes, Environment, and Phenotypes. The fellowship supports research and training of the fellow that will contribute to the area of Rules of Life in innovative ways. Climate change—driven largely by carbon emissions to the atmosphere—and biodiversity loss are among the most difficult problems in ecosystem science. This project aims to improve our understanding of the link between climate change and biodiversity loss by predicting how animals control carbon in freshwater ecosystems. Freshwater bivalve mussels are among the most vulnerable species to climate change. Mussels also have calcium carbonate shells which store carbon and can indirectly affect carbon cycles. This project aims to identify biological traits in mussels that promote freshwater carbon storage and help guide mussel management and conservation initiatives that promote carbon storage, thus helping address climate and biodiversity challenges. The Fellow will also integrate their research with education by developing outreach programs intended to reach local underserved communities and teach the next generation of scientific professionals about the importance of freshwater biodiversity. The goal of this project is to synthesize data on phylogenetic history, functional trait phenotypes, and assemblage composition for freshwater mussels (Bivalvia: Unionoida) to predict the Rules of Life that govern animal effects on stream carbon cycles across the biomolecular, organismal, and ecosystem scales. This research will (i) determine how much variability in mussel trait phenotypes is explained by phylogenetic dissimilarity, (ii) calculate organism-level impacts of dominant mussel species with varying phenotypes on carbon pools and fluxes, and (iii) scale mussel-generated biogeochemical effects to the ecosystem level under different environmental contexts. The Fellow will test for links between phylogenetic identity and functional trait phenotypes using publicly available gene fragment data and an extensive mussel trait dataset including elemental composition, growth rates, thermal tolerances, and movement. The Fellow will also combine the trait dataset with a field experiment using metabolic incubation chambers to quantify how variation in mussels’ traits impact carbon budgets under natural conditions, and scale mussel-driven impacts to the ecosystem scale using geospatial models. The Fellow will receive training in data synthesis and geospatial modelling, recruit and mentor undergraduate researchers from diverse backgrounds, and conduct outreach for students of all age ranges and the general public. 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.