This CAREER proposal will put into place an academic program that prioritizes the direct integration of science and education. The project is structured around three goals: 1. To provide new insights into the effects of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation through the development of novel approaches to study the population- and community-wide aspects of food web structure, 2. To actively engage students and the public through a series of grassroots tidal creek restoration projects, and to use ecosystem-scale manipulations to integrate hypothesis-driven testing of ecological concepts with hands-on learning experiences, and 3. To provide unique educational opportunities for students and the general public, emphasizing opportunities for minorities underrepresented in scientific fields. This project will incorporate recently proposed stable isotope-based metrics as a tool that may reveal unique insights into an organisms? trophic niches, as well as characteristics of the food webs in which they are embedded. In this proposal, the application of these metrics, at both population- and community- levels, is applied in the study of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation. Ecosystem fragmentation is regarded as one of the core causes of global biodiversity loss and the associated erosion of ecosystem function, but most of the research in this area has focused primarily on terrestrial ecosystems. In the Bahamas, fragmentation of tidal creek ecosystems is widespread and can have drastic impacts on biodiversity and ecosystem function. With an extremely diverse team of collaborating partners, this proposal outlines an extensive examination of the effects of fragmentation, including application of the new stable isotope-based metrics. The grassroots nature of the project (i.e., local people carry out major parts of the restoration and associated scientific research) provides a unique opportunity for hands-on learning experiences for local citizens and students, in addition to expanding the scope of data to be collected. The end result of this project will be a broader conceptual basis for understanding the effects of aquatic ecosystem fragmentation, as well as a novel set of tools that can be used to test core ecological theory and assess the effects of other anthropogenic impacts.
My CAREER Award provided an incredible opportunity to develop an integrated science and education program in The Bahamas. From a scientific standpoint, the award was initially targeted at exploring the role of ecosystem fragmentation, in this case the restriction of tidal flow to wetlands following construction of roads along coastlines. In this context, we generated a detailed understanding of the fundamental changes that fragmentation drives, including nutrient limitation regimes for primary producers, individual level trophic ecology, the evolution of aquatic taxa, food web structure, and various aspects of ecosystem function. Wetland restoration projects were one component of the project, providing a tool to directly involve communities in the scientific process. NSF support also allowed our team to establish research endeavors with respect to many other human impacts in the Bahamian coastal realm, including: -The role of coastal eutrophication. Bahamian waters are oligotrophic (nutrient poor), such that nutrient pollution from humans can cause dramatic changes in these systems. For instance, we demonstrated that human-derived nutrients drive blooms of a benthic jellyfish species. -Lionfish invasion. The lionfish invasion has been labeled as one of the top ten global environmental problems. Our team made a series of advances with respect to their role in the invaded range, including their establishment in estuaries, prey naivety to the novel predator, and aspects of their trophic ecology. -Overfishing. Much of our research utilized gradients of fishing intensity, or manipulations intended to simulate fishing pressure, to explore how human fishing pressure may be altering the function of coastal ecosystems. Finally, building from our work with nutrient limitation regimes in fragmented and unfragmented wetland systems, a fourth new research avenue emerged. In nutrient poor systems like The Bahamas, primary producer demand for limiting nutrients is high. In this context, the animals may be supplying nutrients through their excretion. These nitrogen- and phosphorus-based waste products are the very nutrients that plants and algae need to grow. To explore this dynamic, we have created a series of artificial reefs (using cinder blocks) in shallow seagrass beds. These new "reefs" serve to concentrate fish at very high densities – also concentrating their excretion of nutrients into the water. We have demonstrated how this dynamic serves to create a "hot spot" of biological and chemical activity within the seagrass ecosystems. These data provided an important stepping stone to our next major research direction (funded in 2013 by NSF) to explore the role of fish as nutrient sources across multiple sites in the Caribbean. Broader Impacts stemmed directly from the scientific research program. These products ranged from the international to local level, and I highlight some examples here. - I serve on The Nature Conservancy’s Caribbean Program Advisory Board (one of two scientists), providing opportunities for conservation leadership across the region. The Nature Conservancy is at the forefront of the Caribbean Challenge – an effort to protect 20% of coastal and marine habitats throughout the Caribbean by the year 2020. Our research in The Bahamas (and now beyond) is embedded with this initiative, generating basic scientific data in current and proposed marine protected areas. -Development of the Abaco Scientist website (http://absci.fiu.edu/), a tool I hope will emerge as a "one-stop" site for scientific research in the country. The Bahamas hosts dozens of research programs, yet dissemination of results outside of the scientific community is often limited. I hope this site will provide a platform to better share on-going research with Bahamians, and well as the broader non-science community. -To date, we have conducted 4 major creek restoration projects in The Bahamas, all of which involved local communities and minority students. Across all projects, more than 1000 students have had "hands-on" experience. Because of the rapid rate of change post-restoration in these ecosystems, they are an excellent example for local people of how they can be directly involved in environmental stewardship. -I have devoted time to building the scientific capacity of local environmental stewards, e.g., through work with environmental NGOs. This capacity translates into an increased ability of local people to influence environmental policy (e.g., location of marine protected areas, monitoring of development projects, etc.). -Our lab has help develop summer environmental camps and after school clubs for local students of The Bahamas. Many of our study sites and existing projects serve as case studies, providing real-world examples of science and conservation in action. - Through Florida International University, I have targeted inclusion of underrepresented minorities in the sciences. More than 30 undergraduates, most of them Hispanic, have been involved at a high level in the research program, including working as lab managers, developing undergraduate honors theses, or participating in REU-style summer programs. Support through this award was critical in establishing my academic career, and I hope to see this very important funding source (the CAREER Award) continue to be a prominent NSF initiative.
