Collaborative Research: Community Disassembly and Ecosystem Function: Pollination Services Across Agro-natural Landscapes

人类对地球的统治导致了生态系统功能的迅速变化，并使许多对人类生存至关重要的功能退化，如气候调节、水净化和作物授粉。传统上对生态系统功能的研究是在小空间尺度上利用人工组装的群落进行的。因此，我们对人类活动如何影响正在发生变化的真实景观的功能缺乏充分的了解。这项拟议的研究将在人类引起的土地利用变化的背景下调查一个关键的生态功能——授粉。研究人员将研究在自然栖息地碎片中生长的本地植物物种和农业地区的作物植物的授粉情况。这两个系统将根据土地利用强度的梯度来考虑，即研究地点在不同程度上被农业和城市/郊区发展所包围。(1)随着土地利用强度的增加，传粉昆虫群落在物种数量、群落组成、丰度和生物量方面发生了怎样的变化？(2)传粉者群落变化对本地植物和作物传粉的功能影响是什么？(3)哪些环境因子对传粉功能影响最大？这项工作将使整个社会受益，因为随着人口的增长，维持防止水、能源和食物短缺的生态系统服务变得越来越重要。依赖于自然生境的野生物种提供的作物授粉可以为保护这些生境提供经济激励。调查人员将通过讲习班、手册、媒体以及与保护和农业组织的合作项目，将他们的研究结果传达给土地所有者和土地管理者。这项工作的更广泛影响还将包括通过为独立和合作的本科项目提供机会来促进教学、培训和学习，重点关注布林莫尔学院的女性。

Human domination of the earth has led to rapid changes in ecosystem functioning, and has degraded many functions that are essential to human survival, such as climate regulation, water purification and crop pollination. Research on ecosystem function has traditionally been done at small spatial scales using artificially-assembled communities. We therefore lack a full understanding of how human activities influence function in real landscapes where the changes are occurring. The proposed study will investigate a critical ecological function, pollination, in the context of human-induced land use change. The researchers will examine pollination provided to native plant species growing in natural habitat fragments, and to crop plants in agricultural areas. Both systems will be considered across a gradient of land use intensity, i.e., with study sites surrounded to varying extents by agriculture and urban/suburban development. The following questions will be investigated: (1) How do pollinator communities change (in terms of number of species, community composition, abundance and biomass) with increasing land use intensity? (2) What are the functional consequences of pollinator community change for native plant and crop pollination? (3) What environmental factors most strongly influence pollination function?The work will benefit society at large, because as human populations grow, it becomes increasingly important to maintain ecosystem services that prevent shortages of water, energy and food. Crop pollination provided by wild species, which depend on natural habitats, can provide economic incentives for conserving these habitats. The investigators will transmit the results of their study to land owners and land managers through workshops, manuals, the media, and collaborative projects with conservation and farming organizations. The broader impacts of this work will also include promoting teaching, training and learning by providing opportunities for independent and collaborative undergraduate projects, focusing on women from Bryn Mawr College.