Consumer-Resource Dynamics in a Changing Climate: Two Case Studies

在过去的世纪里，地球表面的温度上升了大约0.6摄氏度，预计在下一个世纪里将进一步上升1.4到5.8摄氏度。 预测物种在温暖气候中如何生存的一个核心挑战是了解生物体对气候变化的反应可能如何影响它们与其他物种的相互作用，这将最终决定它们未来的存在或消失。 为了完成这项任务，我们将研究气候变化改变两个系统中物种相互作用的机制：黄石国家公园和皇家岛国家公园的灰狼食物网。 1995年黄石国家公园重新引入灰狼，为比较不同气候变化情景下有无关键顶级捕食者的生态系统功能提供了研究机会。 来自皇家岛的关于狼和驼鹿数量变化以及香脂冷杉生长变化的长期数据，可以对社区对气候变化的反应进行独特的分析。 这项研究将有助于生态理论，通过提供深入了解快速气候变化对物种相互作用的后果，并应用生态学和管理，通过预测气候变化对两个国家公园的生态系统介导的潜在后果。

The Earth's surface has warmed by approximately 0.6C over the past century, and is expected to experience a further warming of 1.4 to 5.8C over the next century. A central challenge to predicting how species will fare in a warmer climate is to understand how the responses of organisms to climate change are likely to affect their interactions with other species, which will ultimately determine their presence or absence in the future. In order to accomplish this task, we will study the mechanisms by which climate change alters species interactions in two well-studied systems: gray wolf food webs in Yellowstone National Park and Isle Royale National Park. The reintroduction of gray wolves to Yellowstone National Park in 1995 provides a research opportunity for comparing the functioning of an ecosystem with and without a keystone top predator under different climate change scenarios. Long-term data from Isle Royale, on changes in the numbers of wolves and moose, and on changes in growth of balsam fir, allow for a unique analysis of community response to climate change. This research will contribute to both ecological theory, by providing insight into the consequences of rapid climate change for species interactions, and to applied ecology and management, by generating predictions about the potential consequences of climate change for wolf-mediated systems in two National Parks.