Warm and fragile: Temperature and vulnerability to extinction in pelagic food webs

温度的升高可能会加强水生外温动物食物网中的摄食联系和竞争相互作用。这项研究旨在测试温度升高是否会导致高幅度的种群波动，顶级捕食者的快速流失以及竞争排斥的加速。这种不稳定性可能导致级联的灭绝和社区关闭，这对水生生态系统的管理和保护具有深远的影响。我提出了实验和理论研究相结合，以提供机械洞察温度上升如何影响（i）藻类，食草动物，杂食动物和食肉动物的多营养群落的动态和内部组织，（ii）这些社区内的人口持续或崩溃的机会，以及（iii）社区关闭或保持开放恢复的概率，物种灭绝已经发生。

A rise in temperature may intensify both feeding links and competitive interactions in food webs of aquatic ectotherms. The proposed research aims to test whether elevated temperatures lead to high amplitude population fluctuations, a rapid loss of top predators and accelerated rates of competitive exclusion. Such destabilisation could lead to cascading extinctions and community closure, which has profound implications for the management and conservation of aquatic ecosystems. I propose a combination of experimental and theoretical research, to provide mechanistic insight into how a rise in temperature affects (i) the dynamics and internal organization of multi-trophic communities of algae, herbivores, omnivores and carnivores, (ii) the chances that populations within these communities persist or collapse, and (iii) the probability that communities become closed, or remain open to recovery, when species losses have already happened.