CAREER: The use of Quantitative Geography to Predict Population Tipping Points for Colonial Seabirds

亚米分辨率卫星图像是一项变革性的技术，它从根本上扩展了我们研究殖民地海鸟空间生态的能力。与此同时，卫星图像和正在开发的用于探索它的地理空间工具为地球和环境科学教育提供了新的机会。本项目为期五年，目的是利用亚米卫星图像参数化的基于个体的巢址占用模型，估计生物和非生物因素在构建海鸟群落精细空间生态（生物过程）中的相对重要性，并了解这些群落内动态如何在区域尺度（地理格局）上驱动栖息地占用。该项目包括三个相互关联的研究活动：1)综合人工和自动卫星图像解译算法，并利用这些方法创建高分辨率、大范围的企鹅繁殖占用数据库，并据此开发特定物种的栖息地适宜性模型；2)构建分层（物种特异性）随机空间-现实结构元种群模型并进行参数化，以研究群体形成和崩溃过程。这些由亚米卫星图像参数化的模型将阐明局部尺度的临界点如何驱动元种群尺度上的紧急动态；3)优化“临界减速”的空间和/或时间指标，作为即将发生的海鸟种群崩溃的指示，在更大的空间尺度上，区域灭绝。该项目的更广泛影响围绕着中学地球和环境科学学习模块的发展，这些模块将地理（内容）、地理空间技术（过程）和南极洲的虚拟访问（背景）整合到一个统一的框架中，用于教授纽约州科学核心课程的关键组成部分。除了这些模块之外，该项目还将包括为高中生提供带薪暑期实习，作为纽约“科学研究”课程的一部分，对南极生物地理进行独立研究。最后，本项目将为两名博士后和两名博士生提供研究培训。

Sub-meter resolution satellite imagery is a transformational technology that radically expands our ability to study the spatial ecology of colonial seabirds. At the same time, satellite imagery and the geospatial tools being developed to explore it present novel opportunities for earth and environmental science education. The research objective of this five-year project is to use individual-based models of nest site occupancy, parameterized by sub-meter satellite imagery, to estimate the relative importance of biotic and abiotic factors in structuring the fine-scale spatial ecology of seabird colonies (biological process) and to understand how these within-colony dynamics drive habitat occupancy at regional scales (geographic pattern). This project involves three interconnected research activities: 1) the synthesis of manual and automated algorithms for satellite imagery interpretation, and the use of such methods to create a high-resolution, large extent database of penguin breeding occupancy from which species-specific habitat suitability models will be developed; 2) the construction and parameterization of a hierarchical (species-specific) stochastic spatially-realistic structured metapopulation model to study the processes of colony formation and collapse. These models, parameterized by the sub-meter satellite imagery, will elucidate how tipping points at the local-scale drive emergent dynamics at the metapopulation scale; and 3) the optimization of spatial and/or temporal metrics for 'critical slowing' as an indication of impending seabird colony collapse and, at larger spatial scales, regional extinction.The Broader Impacts of this project center around the development of secondary-school earth and environmental science learning modules that integrate geography (content), geospatial technologies (process), and virtual access to Antarctica (context) into a unified framework for teaching key components of the New York State Core Curricula for science. In addition to these modules, the project will involve paid summer internships for high school students to conduct independent research on Antarctic biogeography as part of New York's 'Science Research' curriculum. Finally, this project will provide research training for two Postdoctoral Researchers and two PhD students.