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

灭绝受栖息地破坏、疾病、收成、出生率和种群遗传健康等因素的控制。这项研究使用高性能的超级计算机来真实地模拟自然种群的力量，以了解哪种类型的野生动物最有可能面临灭绝。为了确保该项目产生对灭绝原因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地区的美洲原住民和联邦鲑鱼生物学家以及欧洲的种群生物学家密切合作。人们普遍认为，地球上的生命正在经历由人类活动造成的第六次大灭绝事件。多年来，防止物种灭绝一直是人们高度重视的问题。这个项目将通过发现关于物种灭绝原因的新科学知识来帮助保护自然系统。由于数学上的可追溯性，大多数关于灭绝的理论工作一次只关注一种或两种灭绝力。然而，控制自然人口命运的多种力量不可避免地交织在一起，同时起协同作用。这个创新的项目试图通过使用捕捉环境和生物复杂性基本水平的机械计算机模型来了解这些力量的相互作用是如何控制灭绝的。

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.