Kent Carpenter (PI), Daniel Barshis (Old Dominion University), Christopher Bird (Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi), Malin Pinsky (Rutgers University), Beth Polidoro (Arizona State University)
One of the greatest challenges facing humanity today is our ability to understand the impacts humans have on the natural resources we rely on for our existence. Understanding the impacts to date will allow us to better conserve and protect vital resources for future use. Choosing a successful resource management strategy ensures sustainability of resources for present and future generations. Exponential human population growth over the past century has been accompanied by unprecedented demands on the earth's resources, particularly marine fisheries resources. Fortunately, there exists a large collection of fishes at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History that offers a unique window into the human impacts on marine fishes over the past century. In 1907-1909, not long after the U.S. colonized the Philippines, our government sent an expedition there to take stock of their natural resources. This was at a time when natural history collections were stored solely in alcohol which preserves DNA over long periods (compared to most museum collections preserved in formalin that alters DNA). Extensive collections were made that will allow us to examine the changes in the dynamics of populations over a period of extreme human population growth and exploitation of these resources. We will do this by comparing historical and contemporary collections using cutting-edge advanced genomics methods initially developed for human medicine. No work of this scale has ever been accomplished on heavily exploited fisheries and not only will it give us insights valuable for Philippine resource management, but it will also help us understand impacts in other parts of the world. Results will be made available to relevant institutions and the public through extensive outreach activities. This project will integrate field and laboratory research objectives with annual semester-long academic activities in the Philippines. These activities will train a significant number of American and Filipino undergraduate and graduate students and early career professionals in advanced genomic methodology and marine ecology. It will also foster long term collaborative ties and good will between our countries.
An opportunity to dramatically increase the knowledge of genome-scale evolution in marine fishes over the past century of intense human impacts is possible through a unique and extensive collection from the Philippines that took place from 1907 to 1909 on board the US Research Vessel Albatross, maintained at the Smithsonian National Museum of Natural History. The overarching research question in this study is: what genetic and species-level changes have taken place over the past century of intense fisheries exploitation and habitat degradation in the Philippine global epicenter of marine biodiversity? This project takes advantage of the extensive historical collections unique to the Philippines and essential collaborations with Philippine scientists to address the following novel scientific questions: 1. To what extent has genetic diversity been lost from marine species in the Philippines? 2. Have overfishing and habitat loss reduced gene flow between marine populations? 3. To what extent do genetic diversity and species diversity reveal similar changes over a century of human impacts? This will be accomplished by measuring the centennial scale changes in the evolutionary potential of at least 20 species of marine fishes by comparing the genetic makeup of historical and contemporary populations from the same localities using advanced genomic methodologies. The genomic impacts will be compared to larger scale biodiversity changes using 1970's collections of Philippine marine fishes that will be replicated to directly measure species and community scale changes. Together, these investigations will give unprecedented insight into anthropogenic impacts on marine biodiversity and evolution.
