Evolution in Pond Metacommunities

了解生态系统如何响应环境变化对基础生态学和应用生态学都是至关重要的。到目前为止，工作的重点是两个不同的过程，即个体种群如何通过进化变化做出反应，以及群落的物种组成如何做出反应。这两个过程之间的相互作用尚未得到研究，但研究表明，这些过程将相互干扰；也就是说，如果栖息物种迅速适应，那么成分变化的可能性就较小，反之亦然。研究进一步表明，在与世隔绝的社区中，居民更有可能进行适应，而在不那么孤立的社区中，成分变化更有可能发生。通过控制个体物种的遗传组成、群落的物种组成和群落间的传播量，将在室外实验中研究环境变化对适应进化和群落变化相互作用的影响。人类对环境的影响正在改变与世隔绝的模式(通过生境碎片化和促进扩散)和改变环境条件(通过富营养化、污染、气候变化等)。更好地了解这些变化可能如何影响生物、种群、社区和生态系统，将改善对当前和未来环境变化的生态系统反应的预测。这项研究将提供一些关于隔离、扩散、物种进化变化和群落组成之间相互作用的首次实证研究。

Understanding how ecological systems respond to environmental change is critical to both fundamental and applied ecology. Work to date has focused on two distinct processes, how individual populations respond via evolutionary change, and how the species composition of communities responds. The interaction between these two processes has not been investigated, but studies suggest that these processes will interfere with each other; that is, if resident species adapt rapidly then compositional change is less likely and vice-versa. Studies further suggest that adaptation by residents is more likely in isolated communities and compositional change is more likely in less isolated ones. The effects of environmental change on the interaction of adaptive evolution and community change will be investigated in experimental outdoor mesocosms by manipulating the genetic composition of individual species, the species composition of communities, and the amount of dispersal among communities. Human impacts on environments are changing patterns of isolation (via both habitat fragmentation and facilitated dispersal) and changing environmental conditions (via eutrophication, pollution, climate change, etc.). A better understanding of how these changes are likely to affect organisms, populations, communities, and ecosystems will improve predictions of ecosystem responses to current and future environmental change. This research will provide some of the first empirical studies of interactions among isolation, dispersal, evolutionary changes in species, and community composition.