DISSERTATION RESEARCH: How will climate change affect trophic interactions?

全球气候变化被认为对生态系统构成巨大威胁。但是，物种之间的相互作用将如何受到影响，因此，这些物种为人类提供的环境服务将如何改变，这些都存在很大的不确定性。这项研究通过实验评估物种适应气候变化的能力，减少了这种不确定性。本研究将利用草地植物、蚱蜢食草动物和蜘蛛捕食者的实验系统，评估捕食者对变暖的适应能力，并继续控制系统中的食草动物。为了做到这一点，实验将评估蜘蛛在控制蚱蜢方面的表现，这些蚱蜢沿着反映气候变化模型预测的变化的温度梯度。这项研究对关注生态和农业系统将如何受到气候变化影响的纳税人和政策制定者尤其重要。像蚱蜢这样的昆虫物种对农作物具有相当大的破坏性，需要政府援助来弥补经济损失。全球变暖可能会增加出现这种结果的可能性。另一方面，这项研究将评估蝗虫的天敌适应气候变化的程度，从而控制食草动物的损害。

Global climate change is believed to pose a huge threat to ecological systems. But there is much uncertainty about the way interactions among species will be affected and, consequently, how the environmental services these species provide to human kind are going to be altered. This study reduces this uncertainty by experimentally evaluating the capacity of species to adapt with a changing climate. Using an experimental system of grassland plants, grasshopper herbivores, and spider predators, this study will evaluate the ability of predators to adapt with warming and continue to control the herbivores in the system. To do this, the experiment will evaluate spider performance in controlling grasshoppers along a gradient of temperature reflective of the changes predicted by climate change models.This research is especially relevant to tax payers and policy makers concerned with how ecological and agricultural systems are going to be affected by climate change. Insect species like grasshoppers can be quite destructive to agricultural crops, requiring government aid to cover monetary losses. Global warming may enhance the likelihood of this outcome. This study, on the other hand, will evaluate the extent to which natural enemies of grasshoppers can adapt to climate change and thereby keep damage from herbivores in check.