Understanding the temperature dependence of consumer-resource interactions

环境温度的变化会强烈影响消费者与资源的相互作用，例如捕食者与猎物之间的相互作用。这些相互作用构成了生物多样性的基本组成部分，并推动了营养物质和物质在生态系统中的流动。一个三管齐下的方法，结合计算和信息学，机械理论和实验室实验将被用来推进这些过程的科学理解。在信息学方面，已经编制了一个综合数据库（在66° C的总温度范围内测量了203个性状和403个物种），并将进行分析，以调查温度对身体速度和相遇率等功能性状的影响。根据研究结果，第二个方面是开发一个机械模型，该模型使用生理和生态学原理，将温度对人口增长率，死亡率和消费率的影响纳入其中。该模型将预测温度如何影响各种栖息地中不同分类群的种群丰度、物种共存和物种入侵。第三个方面是使用一个可以同时测量所有特征的系统来测试对温度反应的全套预测。该系统是三营养-囊足植物，丑角虫，和两个寄生虫-和它的生活史性状和人口动态进行了广泛的测量和了解。在这个系统中的测试预测将使模型的完善和包括行为方面，如搜索效率的两个寄生虫物种在定位宿主卵。这项工作将被用来量化整个系统在多大程度上可以描述其组成的消费者资源对。因此，研究结果将告知温度对单一消费者-资源对的影响如何扩大到研究食物网。总之，这项研究将有助于阐明温度的波动如何影响寄生性天敌，这是生物害虫控制中的一个关键问题。此外，这项研究计划将有助于阐明温度如何影响生物多样性的机制，对应于对人类至关重要的商品，食品和药物的潜在损失。鉴于全球变暖的证据，了解温度对生态系统动态的影响是一个特别紧迫的问题。

Changes in environmental temperature can strongly impact consumer-resource interactions such as those between predators and their prey. These interactions form the basic building blocks of biodiversity and drive the flux of nutrients and materials through ecosystems. A three-pronged approach that combines computation and informatics, mechanistic theory, and laboratory experiments will be used to advance scientific understanding of these processes. For the informatics prong, a comprehensive database has been compiled (203 traits and 403 species measured over a total range of 66° C) and will be analyzed to investigate effects of temperature on functional traits such as body velocity and encounter rate. Based on the results, the second prong is to develop a mechanistic model that uses physiological and ecological principles to incorporate temperature effects on population growth rate, mortality rate, and consumption rate. This model will yield predictions for how temperature affects population abundances, species coexistence, and species invasions for diverse taxa in a variety of habitats. The third prong will be to test the full suite of predictions for temperature responses using a system in which all traits can be measured simultaneously. This system is tri-trophic - bladderpod plant, harlequin bug, and two parasitoids - and its life history traits and population dynamics are extensively measured and well understood. Testing predictions within this system will enable model refinement and the inclusion of behavioral aspects, such as search efficiencies of the two parasitoid species in locating host eggs. This work will be used to quantify to what extent entire systems can be described by each of their constituent consumer-resource pairs. Thus, the findings will inform how the effects of temperature on single consumer-resource pairs can be scaled up to study food webs. Together, this research will help to illuminate how fluctuations in temperature can affect parasitoid enemies, a crucial issue in biological pest control. Moreover, this research program will help to elucidate mechanisms for how temperature impacts biodiversity, corresponding to the potential loss of goods, food, and drugs that are critical to humans. Given the evidence for global warming, understanding the effects of temperature on ecosystem dynamics is a particularly pressing problem.