Collaborative Research: Pattern and Process in a Tropical Stream Fish Community

捕食危险或恐吓在淡水群落生态中起着重要作用，通过结构成员物种对栖息地的利用。在局部，恐吓可能抑制生长和繁殖，从而直接影响成员物种的种群动态。虽然已知来自捕食者的恐吓会产生局部影响，但没有实验工作解决了如何在更大范围内表达恐吓的重要问题；即生态系统中整个河流或流域的规模。本提案的目标是在热带溪流鱼类群落中探索这个问题。我们将验证一个假设，即捕食者通过恐吓和直接杀戮，可以在大（地理）范围内产生可观察到的模式，以及一个假设，即竞争是观察到的模式的原因。我们将在热带一级和二级实验流系统的控制实验中，通过对特立尼达北部山脉的帕里亚流域进行大规模调查，测试从假设中得出的具体预测。

Predation hazard or intimidation plays an important role in the ecology of freshwater communities by structuring habitat use by member species. Locally, intimidation may suppress growth and reproduction, thereby directly affecting the population dynamics of member species. While intimidation from predators is known to produce local effects, no experimental work has addressed the important question of how intimidation is expressed on larger scales; i.e. the scale of whole streams or watersheds on Iotic systems. The goal of this proposal is to explore that question in a tropical stream fish community. We will test the hypothesis that predators, through intimidation and direct killing, can generate observed patterns across a large (geographic) scale, and also a hypothesis that competition is responsible for an observed pattern. We will test specific predictions derived from the hypotheses in controlled experiments in an tropical first- and second-order experimental stream system, and by conducting a large scale survey of the Paria drainage in the Northern Range Mountains of Trinidad.