National
Science Foundation awards new grants for studies of "Dimensions of
Biodiversity"
Life on Earth is astounding in its
diversity. Despite centuries of discovery, however, the vast majority of the planet's
biodiversity remains unknown.
Only a few years ago, scientists shared
the view that Earth's biodiversity was so vast that it might be beyond
cataloging, much less understanding. That's no longer the case.
To characterize the lesser-known aspects
of the diversity of life on Earth, the National Science Foundation has awarded
14 grants totaling $26.4 million in the third year of its Dimensions of
Biodiversity program.
NSF's Directorates for Biological
Sciences and Geosciences, and Office of International Science and Engineering
support the program. Dimensions of Biodiversity is part of NSF's Science,
Engineering and Education for Sustainability investment.
The Dimensions program has also formed a
partnership with NASA, which co-funds projects that use its remote-sensing
platforms. The global importance of biodiversity is reflected in further
partnerships with funding agencies in China and Brazil, which support
Dimensions collaborators in those countries.
"By establishing networks of
interdisciplinary, globally-engaged scientists, the Dimensions of Biodiversity
program will have a lasting effect on biodiversity science," says John
Wingfield, NSF assistant director for Biological Sciences. "The program
has the potential to transform the way we conduct biological research."
This year's awardees will study subjects
as diverse as the biota of the Amazon and its environment, how nutrient input
drives biodiversity in China's extremely oxygen-deprived--or eutrophic--Lake
Taihu, the components of tree biodiversity, and the lineage of species in
Hawaii.
"The innovative and
interdisciplinary teams of the Dimensions of Biodiversity program may
accomplish in 10 years what, with a piecemeal approach, would have taken 50
years--a half-century we can no longer afford to wait," says Joann
Roskoski, NSF deputy assistant director for Biological Sciences.
Advances in the ability to collect,
analyze and integrate biological data have provided researchers with new tools
to expand knowledge of Earth's biodiversity and to revolutionize our
understanding of the living world.
The pace of discovery, however, is
increasingly offset by the rapid and permanent loss of diversity. Reasons for
biodiversity loss include climate change, over-exploitation of natural
resources, "planetary re-engineering"--such as land-use change, water
diversions, coastal development, fertilizer use--and the intentional or
unintentional movements of species such that they become invasive.
With biodiversity loss, humanity is
losing links in the web of life that provide ecosystem services, forfeiting
opportunities to understand the history and future of the living world and
giving up opportunities for future beneficial discoveries in food, fiber, fuel,
pharmaceuticals and bio-inspired innovation.
Biodiversity research has often focused
on a single dimension. For example, investigators have concentrated on the
taxonomic diversity or phylogenetic history of a clade (an ancestor and all its
descendants), the genetic diversity of a population or a species, or the
functional role of a taxon (a group of one or more populations of organisms) in
an ecosystem.
Although this research has yielded
important advances, huge gaps exist in our understanding of biodiversity. We
know little about how these various dimensions, individually and in concert,
contribute to environmental health, ecosystem stability, productivity and
resilience, and biological adaptation to rapid environmental change.
Dimensions of Biodiversity takes a broad
view of biodiversity that ranges from genes through species to ecosystems. Its
long-term goal is to develop an integrated understanding of the key dimensions
of biodiversity in our ever-changing world.
By 2020, NSF's Dimensions of
Biodiversity program is expected to have transformed our understanding of the
scope and role of life on Earth.
-NSF-
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