Collaborative Research: QEIB: Spatial Ecologies Under Temporal Variation

合作研究：QEIB：时间变化下的空间生态

• 批准号: 0918413
• 负责人: Gyorgy Korniss
• 金额: $ 18.28万
• 依托单位: Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2009
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2009-07-15 至 2014-06-30
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0918413&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; QEIB; Spatial; Ecologies

Invasive species threaten agricultural productivity and public health, and may further destabilize the species composition of certain native ecosystems. An invading species' population, by definition, must advance from its point of introduction. Consequently, ecologists and conservation biologists seek a predictive understanding of a successful invader's pattern of spatial growth. The proposed research will address biological invasion as a front moving, with some random variation, through a two-dimensional environment. Both the theory and experimentation will explicitly consider an ecologically superior invader competing with a native, resident species. Details of the model for spatially clustered growth of the two species permit application of the theory of kinetic roughening, developed in statistical physics, to predict the quantitative behavior of the invasion process. The results generate novel hypotheses concerning both the velocity of the invasive front's advance and the relative position of the furthest invasive incursion into the resident's habitat. Expected values of these quantities depend on the length of the invading front; hence they depend predictably on the linear size of the habitat invaded. Once results for a constant physical environment have been identified, spatial competition in a time-varying environment will be investigated. Field experiments, using a rye grass-clover system, will be used to test hypotheses generated by the models.A greater understanding of links between individual-level interactions and a population's spatial growth will increase our ability to predict how invasive species, emerging infections, and evolutionary adaptations spread across ecological landscapes. The research plan emphasizes education and training of young scientists at both graduate and undergraduate levels. The collaborative, interdisciplinary nature of the research will enhance quantitative skills of ecology students, and will introduce contemporary challenges in ecology and conservation to physics students.

入侵物种威胁农业生产力和公共健康，并可能进一步破坏某些本地生态系统的物种组成。根据定义，入侵物种的种群必须从其引入点前进。因此，生态学家和保护生物学家寻求对成功入侵者的空间增长模式的预测性了解。拟议的研究将解决生物入侵作为一个前沿移动，一些随机变化，通过一个二维的环境。理论和实验都将明确考虑一个生态上优越的上级入侵者与一个本地定居物种的竞争。两个物种的空间集群增长模型的细节允许应用的动力学粗糙化，在统计物理学中开发的理论，来预测入侵过程的定量行为。结果产生了关于入侵锋前进速度和最远入侵入侵居民栖息地的相对位置的新假设。这些数量的预期值取决于入侵前沿的长度;因此，它们可预测地取决于入侵栖息地的线性大小。一旦确定了恒定物理环境的结果，将研究时变环境中的空间竞争。田间实验，使用黑麦草三叶草系统，将被用来测试模型产生的假设。更好地了解个体水平的相互作用和人口的空间增长之间的联系，将提高我们的能力来预测入侵物种，新出现的感染和进化适应如何在生态景观中传播。该研究计划强调在研究生和本科生两级对青年科学家进行教育和培训。该研究的协作性和跨学科性质将提高生态学学生的定量技能，并将向物理学学生介绍生态学和保护方面的当代挑战。