Climate Change and Biogeography: Effects of Extreme Events

气候变化和生物地理学：极端事件的影响

• 批准号: 1129401
• 负责人: David Wethey
• 金额: $ 70.81万
• 依托单位: University South Carolina Research Foundation
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2011
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2011-09-01 至 2016-12-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1129401&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Climate; Change; Biogeography; Effects; Extreme

The long term goal of this project is to make verifiable forecasts of the biodiversity consequences of climate change in the coastal zone. By falsifying some and corroborating other biogeographic hypotheses, the investigators will establish a mechanistic framework for forecasting that can be verified by hindcasting the biogeographic changes that have been documented over the past century of climate change. The confluence of the rich biogeographic history of the European intertidal, the extreme conditions of the past 3 cold winters, and our rapidly expanding abilities in ecological forecasting provide a unique opportunity to make extraordinary progress in forecasting biodiversity responses to climate change. The investigators will quantify the metapopulation dynamics of ecologically dominant intertidal species to determine mechanisms responsible for setting geographic limits, and develop long term forecasts of future change. This research will also allow them to test the effect of episodic extreme events on the usefulness of ensemble methods for biogeographic forecasting. In a changing climate, with increasing frequencies of extreme events, it is important to determine whether the biogeography can ever "catch up", or whether the time lags caused by the demographic storage effect and connectivity will prevent the biology from ever tracking the long term change. The methods for ecological engineer and biodiversity forecasting and hindcasting that are described here have general applicability to marine habitats worldwide. All ecosystems have ecologically dominant species that control the rest of the assemblage of organisms, and they all are metapopulations whose connectivity and age structure determines their sensitivity to climate change and extreme events via the demographic storage effect. The players change from place to place and the oceanographic context also changes, but the methods applied here are broadly transferable.Intellectual MeritThe results of this study will impact dramatically the discourse on the impacts of climate change. Results to date have centered on descriptions of gradual biogeographic range changes and exploration of the mechanisms driving those changes. Rarely in this literature is there discussion of the importance of broadscale episodic catastrophic events on biogeographic ranges, or how to capture those events in forecasting ecological response to climate change. A central prediction of climate change is an increase in the frequency of such potentially catastrophic climatic events which have the power to periodically reset the range boundaries of species in a ratchet-like manner. Of central interest is the degree to which such resets by extreme events determine long-term biogeographic patterns due to the combination of metapopulation dynamics and time lags caused by "storage effects" of long-lived individuals.Broader ImpactsThis project will produce an annotated bibliography of biogeographic data from the Portuguese, Spanish, and French biodiversity literature of the 19th and early 20th centuries, much of which is unavailable in North America. The PIs actively support undergraduate research in their laboratories and field work, and encourage their students to present their work at national meetings. The PIs use research-based approaches in formal teaching, including extensive readings of the primary scientific literature and multi-disciplinary hypothesis driven laboratory exercises. The PIs will collaborate with local high school teachers, who have been co-authors of research papers with the PIs. These collaborations will be enhanced with the Science Lab program of the USC Center for Science Education, which brings students and teachers to USC for 1-day lab experiences. The project will develop a climate change atlas of the European coast including measures of historical risk and the distribution of extreme events. A forecast atlas of the next century will be developed by coupling population models to regional climate forecasts. These products will be used as models of ways to translate scientific results into products of greater utility. The PIs have used this approach in their web-based 7-day ecological forecasts of stress in marine communities, which are in the initial phase of transition to NOAA operational status. The PIs have also engaged policy makers and have worked closely with resource managers.

该项目的长期目标是对沿海地区气候变化造成的生物多样性后果作出可核实的预测。通过证伪一些生物地理假说并证实其他生物地理假说，研究人员将建立一个预测的机械框架，可以通过回顾过去一个世纪气候变化记录的生物地理变化来验证这一框架。欧洲潮间带丰富的生物地理历史、过去3个寒冷冬季的极端条件以及我们迅速发展的生态预测能力，为预测生物多样性对气候变化的反应提供了独特的机会。研究人员将量化生态优势潮间带物种的集合种群动态，以确定设定地理限制的机制，并制定对未来变化的长期预测。这项研究还将使他们能够测试间歇性极端事件对生物地理预测集合方法的有用性的影响。在不断变化的气候中，极端事件的频率越来越高，重要的是要确定生物地理是否有可能“赶上”，或者人口存储效应和连通性造成的时间滞后是否会阻止生物跟踪长期变化。这里描述的生态工程、生物多样性预测和事后预测的方法普遍适用于世界各地的海洋生物栖息地。所有生态系统都有控制其余有机体组合的生态优势物种，它们都是集合种群，它们的连通性和年龄结构通过人口储存效应决定了它们对气候变化和极端事件的敏感性。参与者因地而异，海洋环境也会发生变化，但这里应用的方法具有广泛的可移植性。智力价值这项研究的结果将极大地影响关于气候变化影响的论述。到目前为止，结果主要集中在对生物地理范围逐渐变化的描述和对驱动这些变化的机制的探索上。在这些文献中，很少有关于生物地理范围内大规模事件的重要性的讨论，或者如何捕捉这些事件在预测气候变化的生态反应方面的讨论。对气候变化的一个中心预测是，这种潜在的灾难性气候事件的频率会增加，这种事件有能力以棘轮状的方式定期重新设定物种的范围边界。最令人感兴趣的是极端事件的这种重置在多大程度上决定了长期的生物地理格局，这是由于集合种群动态和长寿个体的“储存效应”造成的时间滞后的组合。广泛影响本项目将产生一个带注释的书目，其中来自19世纪和20世纪初的葡萄牙、西班牙和法国的生物多样性文献，其中大部分在北美是没有的。PIs积极支持他们实验室的本科生研究和实地工作，并鼓励他们的学生在全国会议上展示他们的工作。PIs在正式教学中使用以研究为基础的方法，包括广泛阅读主要科学文献和多学科假设驱动的实验室练习。PIS将与当地高中教师合作，这些教师一直是PIS研究论文的共同作者。这些合作将通过南加州大学科学教育中心的科学实验室项目得到加强，该项目将把学生和教师带到南加州大学进行为期一天的实验室体验。该项目将编制一份欧洲海岸气候变化地图集，其中包括对历史风险的衡量和极端事件的分布。通过将人口模型与区域气候预测相结合，将编制下个世纪的预测地图集。这些产品将被用作将科学成果转化为更具实用性的产品的典范。PIS在其基于网络的7天海洋社区压力生态预测中使用了这一方法，这些社区正处于向NOAA作业状态过渡的初始阶段。投资促进机构还与政策制定者接触，并与资源经理密切合作。