Ecological Interactions Across Ecotones

生态群落通常被定义为特定生境中物种的集合，这些物种之间的营养相互作用由一个静态的食物网来表示。然而，大多数群落并不是孤立的，不受邻近栖息地物种的影响，个体可以改变它们在食物网中的位置，或者在不同栖息地之间移动，因为它们改变了身体的大小。该奖项的重点是发生在栖息地边界上的相互作用，使用对自然种群的观察、栖息地边界的实验操纵和人工栖息地的实验来评估溪流和林地群落成员之间相互作用的重要性。这项研究侧重于火蜥蜴的资源和种群间的相互作用，并测试了关于维持复杂生活史和大小结构种群之间的相互作用以及群落之间的相互作用在景观生态学中的作用的生态学理论。研究物种在生境边界的相互作用对于理解土地利用模式变化导致的生境破碎化的后果是重要的。

An Ecological community is usually defined as an assemblage of species in a given habitat, with trophic interactions among these species represented by a static food web. Most communities, however are not isolated from the effects of species in adjacent habitats and individuals can change their position in the food web or move between habitats as they change body size. This award focuses on interactions that take place across habitat boundaries, using observations of natural populations, experimental manipulation of habitat boundaries, and experiments in artificial habitats to estimate the importance of interactions between members of stream and wooodland communities. The study focuses on resources of salamanders and on interactions among salamander populations and it tests ecological theories on the maintenance of complex life cycles and models interactions between size-structured populations as well as the role of interactions between communities in landscape ecology. The study of interactions among species at habitat boundaries is important to understanding the consequences of habitat fragmentation that results from shifting land use patterns.