CAREER: The Assessment of Extinction Risk from Deleterious Mutation, Habitat Fragmentation, and Environmental Change

灭绝是由栖息地破坏，疾病，收获，出生率和人口的遗传健康等因素控制的。这项研究使用高性能超级计算来逼真地模拟自然种群的力量，以了解哪些类型的野生动物最有可能面临灭绝。为了确保该项目产生关于灭绝原因的具有实际重要性的新知识，以及对自然种群管理人员有用的新计算工具，该项目将与太平洋西北部的美洲土著和联邦鲑鱼生物学家以及欧洲的种群生物学家密切合作，人们广泛认识到，地球上的生命正在经历由人类力量造成的第六次重大灭绝事件。多年来，防止灭绝一直是人们的高度优先事项。该项目将通过发现有关灭绝原因的新科学知识来帮助保护自然系统。由于数学上的易处理性，大多数以前关于灭绝的理论工作一次只关注一种或两种灭绝力。然而，控制自然种群命运的多种力量不可阻挡地交织在一起，同时协同运作。这个创新的项目旨在了解灭绝是如何通过使用机械计算机模型，捕捉环境和生物复杂性的基本水平，这些力量的相互作用。

Extinction is controlled by habitat destruction, disease, harvest, birth rate and the genetic health of a population, among other factors. This study uses high-performance supercomputing to realistically simulate the forces on natural populations to understand which types of wildlife are most likely to face extinction. To ensure that the project produces new knowledge of practical importance on the causes of extinction, and new computational tools that will be useful to managers of natural populations, the project will work closely with Native American and Federal salmon biologists in the Pacific Northwest and population biologists in Europe.There is wide recognition that life on Earth is undergoing a sixth major extinction event caused by human generated forces. Preventing extinction has been a high priority of people for many years. This project will help conserve natural systems by discovering new scientific knowledge on the causes of extinction. Most previous theoretical work on extinction focused on only one or two extinction forces at a time, for reasons of mathematical tractability. However, the multiplicity of forces controlling the fate of natural populations are inexorably intertwined,operating simultaneously and synergistically. This innovative project seeks to understand how extinction is governed by the interplay of these forces by using mechanistic computer models that capture essential levels of environmental and biological complexity.