Deadline: 18-Jan-22
The National Ocean Service (NOS), National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Department of Commerce is pleased to announce the Understanding Multi-Stressor Impacts on Marine Ecosystems under Climate Change.
Climate change is exacerbating existing environmental stressors (e.g., hypoxia, harmful algal blooms, and ocean acidification) through changes to the fundamental drivers of ecosystems (e.g., temperature, precipitation, seasonal cycles, and biogeochemistry).
These changes impact processes such as oxygen, nutrient, and carbon cycling, respiration rates, stratification, ocean circulation, upwelling, and mixing, with implications for the prevalence, severity, and duration of harmful algal blooms, ocean acidification, and hypoxic events.
Understanding how these multiple stressors interact and subsequently impact species, habitat assemblages, and ecosystems is critical for place-based management.
Objectives
CPO’s MAPP program focuses on the development and application of Earth System models and analyses across NOAA, among partner agencies, and with the external research community. Primary objectives include:
- improving Earth System models;
- supporting an integrated Earth System analysis capability;
- improving methodologies for global- to regional-scale climate analysis, predictions, and projections; and
- developing climate modeling capabilities and applications relevant to decision makers based on climate analyses, predictions, and projections.
Priorities
To increase the resilience of MPAs to multiple stressors, this research initiative is focused on using MPA management-relevant species/habitat assemblages to:
- Determine the climate-related thresholds and tipping points for loss of ecosystem function due to the combined effects of ocean and coastal stressors that include increasing temperature, deoxygenation, acidification, and harmful algal blooms.
- Identify the limits and tolerances for species to ecosystem stressors (at a minimum, increasing temperature, deoxygenation, acidification, and harmful algal blooms), both individually and in combination, and how this might impact ecosystems under various future climate and emission scenarios (10–100 years).
- Downscale climate scenarios using regional modeling (i.e., coupled biologicalphysical) frameworks capable of examining the interactions among the multiple stressors and their impacts on species and associated ecosystems at spatial and temporal scales useful for management decisions.
Research projects must:
- Describe the importance of the region or habitat under study, key species, and/or parameters and why they are chosen for analysis with respect to thresholds, tipping points, and social and economic factors.
- Apply model (e.g., reanalyses, hindcasts, and large ensembles) and observational data to examine conditions/drivers of past extremes, tipping points, and benchmark variability patterns that drive ecosystem response;
- Integrate models to enable exploration of multiple stressors in the context of future climate scenarios, building upon and leveraging existing modeling platforms where possible;
- Conduct lab and/or field studies to better understand the relationship between multiple stressors, quantify ecological impacts, and resolve critical model parameters; and
- Focus on or have application to species and/or ecosystems of importance to U.S. MPAs.
- Engage the relevant end users of the information through a management transition advisory group or MTAG. This includes translation of research results (e.g., development and/or contribution to online tools and workshops).
Funding Information
- Funding is contingent upon availability of Federal appropriations. If funds become available for this program, 1-2 projects are expected to be supported for up to four years, with an approximate annual budget for each project up to $1,000,000, not to exceed $4,000,000 total per project.
- Full applications may cover a project/award period up to four years.
Eligibility Criteria
- Eligible applicants for Federal financial assistance in this competition are U.S. institutions of higher education, other non-profits, state, local, Indian Tribal Governments, U.S. Territories, and for-profit organizations.
- Federal agencies that possess the statutory authority to receive transfers of funds are eligible to submit applications for intra- or interagency funds transfers through this competition.
- Department of Commerce (DOC)/NOAA supports cultural and gender diversity and encourages women and minority individuals and groups to submit applications to its programs.
- In addition, DOC/NOAA is strongly committed to broadening the participation of historically black colleges and universities, Hispanic serving institutions, tribal colleges and universities, and institutions that work in underserved areas.
- DOC/NOAA encourages applications involving any of the institutions to apply.
Please note that:
- Principal Investigator (PIs) must be employees of an eligible entity; and applications must be submitted through that entity. Non-Federal researchers should comply with their institutional requirements for application submission.
- Non-Federal researchers affiliated with NOAA-University Cooperative/Joint Institutes will be funded through cooperative agreements.
- Foreign researchers must apply as subawards or contracts through an eligible U.S. entity.
- Federal applicants are eligible to submit applications for intra- or inter-agency funds transfers through this competition. Non-NOAA Federal applicants will be required to submit certifications or documentation showing that they have specific legal authority to accept funds for this type of research.
- An eligible U.S. entity may propose Federal agency researchers as funded or unfunded collaborators. If Federal agency researchers are proposed as funded collaborators, the applicant should present the collaborator’s funding request in the application in the same way documentation is provided for a subrecipient for purposes of project evaluation, even though intra- or inter-agency funding transfers will generally be used if the project is selected.
- NCCOS researchers may apply through an eligible U.S. entity as funded or unfunded collaborators, but cannot be the lead PI on the application. NOAA Federal salaries will not be paid.
For more information, visit https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/view-opportunity.html?oppId=334906